Over the past two decades, the global HIV/AIDS pandemic has emerged as one of the most pressing health concerns worldwide. In low-income countries, where resources are scarce, both the prevalence of HIV and the associated mortality rates have been steadily increasing. According to the national AIDS control program, approximately 74,619 individuals in Pakistan are living with HIV...
In the early phase of HIV infection, as studied in vitro, high levels of unintegrated (both linear and circular) and integrated (provirus) forms of viral DNA are seen, and cells produce high levels of virus. In time, the level of unintegrated DNA declines, followed by a progressive decline in virus expression. Extensive studies of the proviral landscape in people living with HIV...
Among the many CRFs, CRF55_01B was the first CRF01_AE and subtype B recombinant strain identified around 2013 among men who have sex with men (MSM) in Shenzhen, China. With rapid spreading throughout the country, CRF55_01B has attracted much attention in recent years. This study aimed to analyze its prevalence of drug resistance and transmission characteristics in people living...
Prototype foamy virus (PFV) is a complex retrovirus that can maintain latent infection for life after viral infection of the host. However, the mechanism of latent infection with PFV remains unclear. Our previous studies have shown that PFV promotes autophagy flux, but whether PFV causes mitophagy remains unclear. In this study, we demonstrated that PFV infection damages...
The retrovirus Human T-lymphotropic virus type 1 is classified into different subtypes, and due to its low evolutionary rates, it can be used to explore geographic patterns of origin and dispersion of human populations. In Brazil, Transcontinental and Japanese subgroups, from the Cosmopolitan subtype, are the more common lineages, with prevalence rates notably higher among...
People living with HIV (PLWH) who experience low-level viremia (LLV) face unique challenges in disease management, particularly when diagnosed with concurrent malignancies. Albuvirtide (ABT), a long-acting HIV fusion inhibitor approved in China, has shown promise in clinical trials for treatment-experienced individuals. However, its efficacy in managing LLV in the context of...
Acute myelocytic leukemia (AML) is a common hematological malignancy in adults. Although several risk stratifications based on cytogenetic and molecular abnormalities are available to guide the indications for allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (allo-HCT), determining optimal treatment strategies for AML remains challenging. In this study, using transcriptome datasets...
Despite recent partial waivers granted by PEPFAR, the 2025 suspension of PEPFAR funding jeopardizes HIV/AIDS care for 20.6 million people, including 550,000 children, and risks reversing decades of progress in Sub-Saharan Africa (67% of global HIV burden). Immediate consequences include halted ART access, healthcare worker salary suspensions, and potential resurgence of AIDS...
The tumor suppressor Menin, prone to mutations in both hereditary and sporadic endocrine tumors, along with its direct target Bach2, plays a crucial role in preventing autoimmunity by regulating CD4 + T cell senescence and maintaining cytokine homeostasis. Since human T-cell leukemia virus type 1 (HTLV-1) primarily infects CD4 + T cells, and its dysregulation contributes to both...
Like all retroviruses, two kinds of viral DNA are present in the nucleus of HIV-infected cells: integrated DNA and a pool of unintegrated DNA containing linear and circular forms. For the most part, it has been difficult to examine the role of the unintegrated DNA forms in the viral life cycle in the presence of the integrated form, or to distinguish the respective contributions...
Human T-cell Lymphotropic Virus type-1 (HTLV-1) infection is associated with serious disorders, including Adult T-cell Leukemia/Lymphoma (ATLL) and HTLV-1–associated myelopathy/tropical spastic paraparesis (HAM/TSP). In addition to sexual, vertical, parenteral, and blood transfusion, organ/tissue transplantation is considered as a transmission route of HTLV infection. Given the...
The role of viruses in the development of breast cancer has been a subject of debate and extensive research over the past few decades. Several studies have examined the association between Bovine leukemia virus (BLV) infection and the risk of developing breast cancer; however, their findings have yielded inconsistent results. To address this uncertainty, the purpose of the...
The rapid establishment and persistence of latent HIV-1 reservoirs is one of the main obstacles towards an HIV cure. While antiretroviral therapy supresses viral replication, it does not eradicate the latent reservoir of HIV-1-infected cells. Recent evidence suggests that the human microbiome, particularly the gut microbiome, may have the potential to modulate the HIV-1 reservoir...
Brazil has the highest number of HTLV-1 infection in Latin America, with around one million cases spread unevenly across regions. However, there is a limited number of studies on this infection in the general population. This cross-sectional study aimed to estimate the prevalence of HTLV as well as identify types, and subtypes of HTLV among the urban population of Campo Grande...
Since previous studies have suggested that the RNAs of human endogenous retrovirus (HERV) might be involved in regulating innate immunity, it is important to investigate the HERV transcriptome patterns in innate immune cell types such as CD14 + monocytes. Using single cell RNA-seq datasets from resting or stimulated PBMCs mapped to 3,220 known discrete autonomous proviral HERV...
Despite the efficacy of antiretroviral therapy (ART) in reducing the global incidence of vertical HIV transmissions, more than 120,000 children are still infected with the virus each year. Since ART cannot clear the HIV reservoir that is established soon after infection, children living with HIV (CLWH) are forced to rely on therapy for their lives and suffer from long-term drug...
Since the introduction of combination antiretroviral therapy (cART) the brain has become an important human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) reservoir due to the relatively low penetration of many drugs utilized in cART into the central nervous system (CNS). Given the inherent limitations of directly assessing acute HIV infection in the brains of people living with HIV (PLWH), animal...
Retroviruses exploit host proteins to assemble and release virions from infected cells. Previously, most studies focused on interacting partners of retroviral Gag proteins that localize to the cytoplasm or plasma membrane. Given that several full-length Gag proteins have been found in the nucleus, identifying the Gag-nuclear interactome has high potential for novel findings...
An essential regulatory hub for retroviral replication events, the 5’ untranslated region (UTR) encodes an ensemble of cis-acting replication elements that overlap in a logical manner to carry out divergent RNA activities in cells and in virions. The primer binding site (PBS) and primer activation sequence initiate the reverse transcription process in virions, yet overlap with...
Detection of viruses by host pattern recognition receptors induces the expression of type I interferon (IFN) and IFN-stimulated genes (ISGs), which suppress viral replication. Numerous studies have described HIV-1 as a poor activator of innate immunity in vitro. The exact role that the viral capsid plays in this immune evasion is not fully understood. To better understand the...