Zidovudine reduces intrathecal immunoactivation in patients with early human immunodeficiency virus type 1 infection.

Objective: To evaluate the effect of zidovudine on human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1)-associated central nervous system infection in Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stage II or III disease.

Design: In an open-ended trial, patients received 500 mg of zidovudine twice a day for 12 months. Lumbar punctures, neurological, neuropsychological, and neuroradiological examinations were repeatedly performed during the trial period and were compared with pretrial values.

Helper T-cell recognition of HIV-1 Tat synthetic peptides.

The regulatory proteins coded by the human immunodeficiency virus, (HIV)-1 genome are expressed by the infected cells before the initiation of the synthesis of structural proteins and thus immune response directed against these proteins could destroy infected cells before the release of infectious virions. The evaluation of T-lymphocyte responses toward Tat, one of the main HIV-1 regulatory proteins, is therefore of interest. We selected a group of HIV-infected patients with retained response to the recall antigen purified protein derivative and tested their CD4+ helper T-cell response toward recombinant Tat and toward 12 soluble synthetic partially overlapping 15-16-mer Tat peptides in a proliferation assay.

The decrease of CD8-positive lymphocytes in Alzheimer's disease.

The aim of this study was to analyze the possible association of the changes in systemic immunity in the neurodegenerative diseases and in brain atrophy per se. Therefore we enumerated the numbers and proportions of the CD3-, CD4- and CD8-positive cells and B-lymphocytes in peripheral blood of 136 patients with various neurodegenerative disorders of the brain and 58 healthy age-matched controls. The selective decrease of the CD8-positive lymphocytes was demonstrated in the patients with Alzheimer's disease.

Effect of PUVA on immunologic and virologic findings in HIV-infected patients.

Psoralen and UVA radiation inactivate human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in vitro whereas UVB and UVC radiation under experimental conditions transactivate HIV. We studied the effect of systemic PUVA treatment on immunologic and virologic findings in five HIV-infected patients. Systemic PUVA was given in two-4-week periods, 2 months apart.

Affinity-based collection of amplified viral DNA: application to the detection of human immunodeficiency virus type 1, human cytomegalovirus and human papillomavirus type 16.

We have devised a sensitive and convenient hybridization technique by combining the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) with affinity-based hybrid collection. In this method 5'-biotinylated primers are used to introduce biotin residues into the DNA fragments during the amplification. The amplified DNA fragments are detected by liquid hybridization using a 32P- or 35S-labelled oligonucleotide as probe.

T-cell response towards HIV in infected individuals with and without zidovudine therapy, and in HIV-exposed sexual partners.

HIV-specific T-cell response in HIV-infected individuals at different stages of the disease and during zidovudine therapy was studied using HIV and HIV-envelope derived native and recombinant proteins as antigens. Neither antibody-negative at-risk individuals nor HIV-infected individuals responded to HIV or its envelope-derived proteins, even though they responded to a recall antigen, purified protein derivative of tuberculin (PPD). However, five out of 14 antibody- and antigen-negative sexual partners of known HIV-positive men did respond to HIV, native gp 120 and recombinant envelope and core proteins.