Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
Pivot Concepts:   Target Concepts:
Query: UMLS:C0021051 (immunodeficiency)
 71,517 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Recreational drug use has been proposed to affect the course of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infections. To investigate the effects of substance abuse on HIV infections, we compared virus-specific cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) responses and the expression of IL-16, TGF-beta1, and CXCR4 in three different cohorts of HIV-infected patients: (1) long-term nonprogressors (LT-NPs) of HIV infection who do not use recreational drugs; (2) nondrugs using normal progressors (NPs), and (3) drugs using NPs. Our results show that LT-NPs manifest increased CTL activity and IL-16 expression and decreased expression of TGF-beta1 and CXCR4 compared to NPs, regardless of recreational drug usage. Furthermore, drugs using NPs showed significantly lower levels of CTL and IL-16 expression and increased TGF-beta1 and CXCR4 expression compared to nondrugs using NPs. Our results suggest that recreational drug use may reduce CTL and IL-16 expression and increase the expression of TGF-beta1 and CXCR4, all of which may facilitate progression of HIV infections.
 ...
PMID:Association of drug abuse with inhibition of HIV-1 immune responses: studies with long-term of HIV-1 non-progressors. 1474 21

High-level human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) replication and the rapid breakdown of the mucosal immune system are the hallmarks of HIV infection in the gut. Cytokine dysregulation may be related to both phenomena. Using real-time PCR we quantified the colonic mucosal mRNA expression of selected proinflammatory and regulatory (gamma interferon [IFN-gamma], tumor necrosis factor alpha [TNF-alpha], and interleukin-2 [IL-2], IL-4, IL-6, and IL-10) and HIV-inhibitory (IL-16, CCL3, and CCL5) cytokines for 10 HIV-infected patients before and during 9 months of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART). HIV RNA and T-cell dynamics were measured in the colonic mucosa and the blood. Seven HIV-negative individuals served as controls. The mucosal mRNA expression of TNF-alpha, IFN-gamma, IL-4, IL-6, and IL-10 was significantly higher in HIV-infected patients than in control patients and remained elevated during 9 months of HAART despite the decline in blood and mucosal HIV RNA levels and an increase in the level of CD4(+) T lymphocytes. The mRNA levels of CCL3 and CCL5, both of which were elevated before treatment, returned to nearly normal during therapy. Despite reductions in levels of mucosal HIV RNA and the restoration of mucosal CD4(+) T lymphocytes, antiretroviral therapy failed to restore the normal colonic immunologic environment.
 ...
PMID:Cytokine expression in the colonic mucosa of human immunodeficiency virus-infected individuals before and during 9 months of antiretroviral therapy. 1857 39


<< Previous 1 2