Associations of HIV persistence, cigarette smoking, inflammation, and pulmonary dysfunction in people with HIV on antiretroviral therapy.

We aimed to investigate the relationship between measures of HIV persistence with antiretroviral therapy (ART) and cigarette smoking, systemic markers of inflammation, and pulmonary function. Retrospective study of 82 people with HIV (PWH) on ART for a median of 6.9 years (5.

Contribution of Coronavirus-Specific Immunoglobulin G Responses to Complement Overactivation in Patients with Severe Coronavirus Disease 2019.

Background: Excessive complement activation has been implicated in the pathogenesis of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), but the mechanisms leading to this response remain unclear.

Methods: We measured plasma levels of key complement markers, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) RNA and antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 and seasonal human common cold coronaviruses (CCCs) in hospitalized patients with COVID-19 of moderate (n = 18) and critical severity (n = 37) and in healthy controls (n = 10).

Results: We confirmed that complement activation is systemically increased in patients with COVID-19 and is associated with a worse disease outcome.

Comparison of methods to quantify inducible HIV-1 outgrowth.

The quantitative viral outgrowth assay (qVOA) is the gold standard for measuring inducible, replication-competent HIV-1. Using MOLT4-R5 and SupT1-R5 cell lines instead of allogeneic blasts and HIV-1 RNA detection rather than p24 enzyme-immunoassay (EIA) has been proposed to improve the sensitivity of the qVOA. It is unclear, however, how these alternative approaches affect qVOA performance.

Intractable Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) and Prolonged Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) Replication in a Chimeric Antigen Receptor-Modified T-Cell Therapy Recipient: A Case Study.

A chimeric antigen receptor-modified T-cell therapy recipient developed severe coronavirus disease 2019, intractable RNAemia, and viral replication lasting >2 months. Premortem endotracheal aspirate contained >2 × 1010 severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) RNA copies/mL and infectious virus. Deep sequencing revealed multiple sequence variants consistent with intrahost virus evolution.