Publications by authors named "Benjy Jek Yang Tan"
Article Synopsis
- - HTLV-1 can quickly transform CD4+ T cells in a lab setting, but most infected people remain asymptomatic, indicating a balance between the virus and the host's immune response.
- - The study found a variant in the HTLV-1 Tax301-309 viral antigen in individuals with a specific HLA-A24 type, which affected the detection of anti-Tax cytotoxic T cells (CTLs).
- - More than half of the T-cell receptors (TCRs) from these anti-Tax CTLs failed to recognize the mismatched Tax301-309 peptides, underlining the need for precise matching of viral antigens in T-cell therapy for adult T-cell leukemia (ATL).
Background: Highly transmissible viruses including SARS-CoV-2 frequently accumulate novel mutations that are detected via high-throughput sequencing. However, there is a need to develop an alternative rapid and non-expensive approach. Here we developed a novel multiplex DNA detection method Intelli-OVI for analysing existing and novel mutations of SARS-CoV-2.
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- - The study focuses on understanding how HIV-1 latency is established and maintained, which is crucial for targeting the virus effectively.
- - Researchers introduced a new model called HIV-Timer of cell kinetics and activity (HIV-Tocky) that uses dual fluorescence to track HIV provirus silencing and reactivation, allowing for a better analysis of latent HIV populations.
- - The HIV-Tocky model distinguishes between two types of latent cells: those that are directly latent and those that have recently silenced, thereby enhancing our understanding of HIV reservoirs and potential treatment strategies to eliminate the virus.
The pandemic HIV-1, HIV-1 group M, emerged from a single spillover event of its ancestral lentivirus from a chimpanzee. During human-to-human spread worldwide, HIV-1 diversified into multiple subtypes. Here, our interdisciplinary investigation mainly sheds light on the evolutionary scenario of the viral budding system of HIV-1 subtype C (HIV-1C), a most successfully spread subtype.
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- The text discusses the challenge of eliminating latent HIV-1 infected cells during treatment and highlights a lack of effective in vitro models for testing therapies.
- It presents a new protocol for creating various types of HIV-infected Jurkat cells, including ones that produce the virus and those that are latent.
- This protocol allows for testing antiviral agents and analyzing the HIV provirus, which helps improve HIV-1 treatment strategies and understand how different infected cells are selected over time.
Article Synopsis
- Bovine leukemia virus (BLV) causes the growth of infected B lymphocytes and up to 5% of infected cows can develop enzootic bovine leukosis (EBL), which involves tumor cell proliferation.
- Using viral integration site analysis through a DNA capture-sequencing method, researchers discovered that identical tumor clones can be found in both blood and tumor tissue, suggesting that these cancer cells can circulate within the bodies of EBL-infected cattle.
- A new method called rapid amplification of integration sites (BLV-RAIS) was developed to efficiently diagnose EBL by detecting clonal expansion of BLV-infected cells, showing high diagnostic sensitivity and specificity, thus providing a reliable tool for early detection of EBL
Regulatory T-cells (Treg) are considerably heterogeneous. Thymically derived Treg (tTreg) are those, which differentiate in the thymus, while peripherally derived Treg (pTreg) differentiate from peripheral mature CD4 T-cells. These two populations are often identified using markers such as neuropilin-1 and Helios (for tTreg) and ROR-γt (for pTreg) in intestines (Tanoue et al.
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- Persistence of HIV-1 latent reservoir cells during antiretroviral therapy (ART) presents a significant challenge in curing HIV-1.
- * Researchers developed the "widely distributed intact provirus elimination" (WIPE) assay, a long-term cell culture system that mimics the diverse infection scenarios of HIV-1.
- * The WIPE assay allows for the evaluation of latency-reversing agents (LRAs) and demonstrates that combining LRAs with ART can effectively reactivate and help eliminate latent HIV-1 cells.
Article Synopsis
- Coinfection with HIV-1 and HTLV-1 complicates AIDS diagnosis and increases HTLV-1-related health issues, prompting research into how these infections affect each other.
- The study analyzed DNA from individuals infected with either virus alone or both, measuring viral loads and genetic characteristics using advanced PCR techniques.
- Results showed higher viral loads and increased clonal expansion in coinfected individuals, with specific changes in the locations of HIV-1 integration sites, suggesting a potential increase in disease risk associated with this coinfection.
For eradication of HIV-1 infection, it is important to elucidate the detailed features and heterogeneity of HIV-1-infected cells in vivo. To reveal multiple characteristics of HIV-1-producing cells in vivo, we use a hematopoietic-stem-cell-transplanted humanized mouse model infected with GFP-encoding replication-competent HIV-1. We perform multiomics experiments using recently developed technology to identify the features of HIV-1-infected cells.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe retrovirus human T-cell leukemia virus type 1 (HTLV-1) integrates into the host DNA, achieves persistent infection, and induces human diseases. Here, we demonstrate that viral DNA-capture sequencing (DNA-capture-seq) is useful to characterize HTLV-1 proviruses in naturally virus-infected individuals, providing comprehensive information about the proviral structure and the viral integration site. We analyzed peripheral blood from 98 naturally HTLV-1-infected individuals and found that defective proviruses were present not only in patients with leukemia, but also in those with other clinical entities.
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