Published in Retrovirology
BackgroundKoalas are infected with the koala retrovirus (KoRV) that exists as exogenous or endogenous viruses. KoRV is genetically diverse with co-infection with up to ten envelope subtypes (A-J) possible; KoRV-A is the prototype endogenous form. KoRV-B, first found in a small number of koalas with an increased leukemia prevalence at one US zoo, ha...
Published in Retrovirology
BackgroundThe development of pretreatment drug resistance (PDR) is becoming an obstacle to the success of antiretroviral therapy (ART). Besides, data from developing settings including Ethiopia is still limited. Therefore, this study was aimed to assess HIV-1 genetic diversity and PDR mutations among ART-naive recently diagnosed HIV-1 infected indi...
Published in Retrovirology
As HIV has fueled a global resurgence of tuberculosis over the last several decades, there is a growing awareness that HIV-mediated impairments in both innate and adaptive immunity contribute to the heightened risk of tuberculosis in people with HIV. Since early immune responses to Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) set the stage for subsequent contr...
Published in Retrovirology
BackgroundA protein exhibiting more than one biochemical function is termed a moonlighting protein. Glycolytic enzymes are typical moonlighting proteins, and these enzymes control the infection of various viruses. Previously, we reported that glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) and alpha-enolase (ENO1) are incorporated into human immun...
Published in Retrovirology
BackgroundHuman T-cell leukemia virus type 1 (HTLV-1) infects primarily CD4+ T-lymphocytes and evoques severe diseases, predominantly Adult T-Cell Leukemia/ Lymphoma (ATL/L) and HTLV-1-associated Myelopathy/ Tropical Spastic Paraparesis (HAM/TSP). The viral transactivator of the pX region (Tax) is important for initiating malignant transformation, ...
Published in Retrovirology
BackgroundHuman T-cell lymphotropic virus type 1 (HTLV-1) is the etiological agent of HTLV associated myelopathy/ Tropical Spastic Paraparesis (HAM/TSP) and Adult T cell leukemia/lymphoma (ATLL), in around 2–5% of the infected individuals. Host genetic background might play a role in disease progression. Several previous studies across many countri...
Published in Retrovirology
BackgroundAntiretroviral therapy (ART) can mitigate the morbidity and mortality caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Successful development of ART can be accelerated by accurate structural and biochemical data on targets and their responses to inhibitors. One important ART target, HIV integrase (IN), has historically been studied in vi...
Published in Retrovirology
BackgroundAdult T-cell leukemia lymphoma (ATLL) is a chemotherapy-resistant malignancy with a median survival of less than one year that will afflict between one hundred thousand and one million individuals worldwide who are currently infected with human T-cell leukemia virus type 1. Recurrent somatic mutations in host genes have exposed the T-cell...
Published in Retrovirology
BackgroundThe reliable diagnosis of human T-cell leukemia virus type 1 (HTLV-1) infection is important, particularly as it can be vertically transmitted by breast feeding mothers to their infants. However, current diagnosis in Japan requires a confirmatory western blot (WB) test after screening/primary testing for HTLV-1 antibodies, but this test o...
Published in Retrovirology
BackgroundAlternative splicing is a key step in Human Immunodeficiency Virus type 1 (HIV-1) replication that is tightly regulated both temporally and spatially. More than 50 different transcripts can be generated from a single HIV-1 unspliced pre-messenger RNA (pre-mRNA) and a balanced proportion of unspliced and spliced transcripts is critical for...
