Hematite Hollow-Sphere-Array Photoanodes for Efficient Photoelectrochemical Water Splitting.

Constructing 3D nanophotonic structures is regarded as an effective method to realize efficient solar-to-hydrogen conversion. These photonic structures can enhance the absorbance of photoelectrodes by the light trapping effect, promote the charge separation by designable charge transport pathway and provide a high specific surface area for catalytic reaction. However, most 3D structures reported so far mainly focused on the influence of light absorption and lacked a systematic investigation of the overall water splitting process.

HAMdetector: a Bayesian regression model that integrates information to detect HLA-associated mutations.

Motivation: A key process in anti-viral adaptive immunity is that the human leukocyte antigen (HLA) system presents epitopes as major histocompatibility complex I (MHC I) protein-peptide complexes on cell surfaces and in this way alerts CD8+ cytotoxic T-lymphocytes (CTLs). This pathway exerts strong selection pressure on viruses, favoring viral mutants that escape recognition by the HLA/CTL system. Naturally, such immune escape mutations often emerge in highly variable viruses, e.

The first third-generation HIV-1 circulating recombinant form (CRF114_0155) identified in central China.

A novel circulating recombinant form (CRF) was identified in eight HIV-1-infected patients without direct epidemiological relationships in Henan Province, Central China. Recombination analysis indicated that the genome of this novel CRF comprises five segments: three inherited from CRF01_AE cluster-4 and two from CRF55_01B. Therefore, the CRF was designated CRF114_0155.

Variations in Env at amino acids 328 and 330 affect HIV-1 replicative fitness and entry inhibitor sensitivity.

While the variations in the HIV-1 Env V3 loop have been the focus of much research to explore its functional effect, how specific mutations of certain amino acids in the V3 loop affect viral fitness remains unclear. In this study, we evaluated a series of natural polymorphisms at positions 328 and 330 with different combinations of adjacent glycosylation sites in the HIV-1 subtype B backbone to address their role in replicative fitness and sensitivity to entry inhibitors based on analysis of env sequence frequency at the population level. Pairwise growth competition experiment showed that wild-type virus with major consensus amino acids obviously had higher replicative fitness (P < 0.

Evaluation of susceptibility of HIV-1 CRF01_AE variants to neutralization by a panel of broadly neutralizing antibodies.

Broadly neutralizing antibodies (bNAbs) are very promising agents for HIV-1 prophylaxis and AIDS treatment. However, the neutralization susceptibility of circulating recombinants such as CRF01_AE, which is becoming increasingly prevalent, has not been studied in detail until now. Here, we focused on CRF01_AE in China and aimed to find bNAbs that can be used for neutralization of CRF01_AE.

Surveillance of HIV-1 drug resistance in Xinjiang: high prevalence of K103N in treatment-naïve individuals.

To identify transmitted and acquired HIV-1 drug resistance mutations in Xinjiang, China, we collected the peripheral blood of 50 treated and 50 treatment-naïve HIV-1-infected individuals in this region. We successfully amplified 36 reverse transcriptase and 42 protease gene sequences of HIV-1 from 51 individuals and identified mutations associated with resistance to reverse transcriptase (RT) and protease (PR) inhibitors (RTIs and PIs) according to Stanford Drug Resistance Database. Among the drug-treated individuals, the results showed that K103N in the RT region was the most frequent mutation, found in 67% (6/9) of the cases, followed by M184V with 56% (5/9).

DCAF1 is involved in HCV replication through regulation of miR-122.

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is a worldwide threaten to human health with a high ratio of chronic infections. Recently, we found that Vpr-mediated regulation of HCV replication depends on the host protein DDB1-Cul4 associate factor 1 (DCAF1), implying that DCAF1 might be involved in the replication of HCV. In this study, we demonstrated that DCAF1 knockdown reduced HCV replication both in the infectious (JFH1) and replicon (Con1) systems.

Expression Pattern of Individual IFNA Subtypes in Chronic HIV Infection.

Interferon-α (IFN-α) plays an important role in HIV pathogenesis. IFN-α consists of 13 individual IFN-α subtypes, which exhibit individual antiviral and immunomodulatory activities in HIV infection. Here, we determined the expression profiles of all IFN-α subtypes in treated and treatment-naive HIV patients and their impact on the induction of distinct HIV restriction factors.

Drug resistance mutation profiles of the drug-naïve and first-line regimen-treated HIV-1-infected population of Suzhou, China.

Little is known about the prevalence of drug-resistant mutations in HIV-1-positive individuals in Suzhou, China. To elucidate the transmitted drug resistance (TDR) and acquired drug resistance mutation (ADR) profiles, we collected blood specimens from 127 drug-naïve and 117 first-line drug-treated HIV-1-infected individuals sampled from 2014 to 2016 in Suzhou. We successfully amplified pol fragments from 100 drug-naïve and 20 drug-treated samples.

Phylodynamics of major CRF01_AE epidemic clusters circulating in mainland of China.

As the most dominant HIV-1 strain in China, CRF01_AE needs to have its evolutionary and demographic history documented. In this study, we provide phylogenetic analysis of all CRF01_AE pol sequences identified in mainland China. CRF01_AE sequences were collected from the Los Alamos HIV Sequence Database and the local Chinese provincial centers of disease control and prevention.

The Changes of Positive Selection Within env Gene of HIV-1 B', CRF07_BC and CRF08_BC from China Over Time.

Background: It is not clear about the possible evolutionary changes of the three predominant strains of HIV-1 in China over the course of the epidemic. Envelope (env) gene of HIV-1 is a good target for this evolutionary pressure for its enriched epitopes.

Methods: We collected 159 full or part of env sequences sampled between 1997 and 2010 from database of China, we calculated the genetic distance, detected the positively selected sites by PAML suite and then compared the number using Fisher's exact test between the early period 1997 to 2003 and the late period 2004 to 2010.

An HIV-1 capsid binding protein TRIM11 accelerates viral uncoating.

Background: Several members of the TRIM family have been implicated in antiviral defense. Our previous report showed that human TRIM11 potently inhibited HIV-1 transduction by reducing the viral reverse transcripts. These results prompted us to examine the effect of TRIM11 on HIV-1 uncoating, which is closely related to viral reverse transcription.

[Upregulated PD-1 on CD8T cells is positively correlated with activation of T cells during HIV-1 infection].

Objective To investigate the expressions of programmed death-1 (PD-1), CD38, human leukocyte antigen DR (HLA-DR) and anligen KI-67(ki67) on CD8 T cells, and the correlation between PD-1/PD-L1 pathway and activation, immunodepletion during HIV-1 infection. Methods Peripheral blood mononuclear cells were isolated by density gradient centrifugation from 87 HIV-1 patients and 22 healthy controls. The expression levels of PD-1, CD38, HLA-DR and ki67 on CD8T cells were detected by flow cytometry.

Ficolin-2 binds to HIV-1 gp120 and blocks viral infection.

Ficolin-2 is a lectin complement pathway activator present in normal human plasma and usually associated with infectious diseases, but little is known about the role of ficolin-2 in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. Here, we describe our novel findings that serum ficolin-2 concentrations of 103 HIV-1 patients were much higher compared to those of 57 healthy donors. In vitro analysis showed that HIV-1 infection could enhance ficolin-2 expression.

Roles of microRNAs in HIV-1 Replication and Latency.

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are non-coding RNA molecules, with sequence length of 19-24 nucleotides, which can induce mRNA degradation and regulate protein translation repression. Recently plenty of reports showed that miRNAs increase or decrease in the serum (circulating miRNAs) and in PBMC of Human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) infected individuals to affect the replication of HIV-1 through regulating HIV-1 proteins or HIV-1 replication related host factors. Many of miRNAs can suppress HIV-1 replication, but do not affect the integrated viral DNA.

HIV-1 Vpr increases HCV replication through VprBP in cell culture.

Coinfection of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) occurs at a high frequency, in which HIV shows a promotion of HCV-derived liver diseases. However, the mechanism of how this occurs is not well understood. Our previous work has demonstrated that the HIV-1 accessory protein Vpr enhances HCV RNA replication in cell culture.

The V1 region of gp120 is preferentially selected during SIV/HIV transmission and is indispensable for envelope function and virus infection.

A transmission bottleneck occurs during each human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) transmission event, which allows only a few viruses to establish new infection. However, the genetic characteristics of the transmitted viruses that are preferentially selected have not been fully elucidated. Here, we analyzed amino acids changes in the envelope protein during simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV)/HIV deep transmission history and current HIV evolution within the last 15-20 years.

The Epidemic Dynamics of Four Major Lineages of HIV-1 CRF01_AE Strains After Their Introduction into China.

The epidemic of HIV-1 CRF01_AE in China was driven by multiple lineages of HIV-1 viruses introduced in the 1990s and increasing; it is important to investigate their epidemic status in China. In this study, we download all available CRF01_AE sequences (n = 2,931) from China and their associated epidemiological information in the Los Alamos HIV database for our analysis to explore their epidemic status in China. The results showed there were 11 distinct clusters of CRF01_AE strains in China, and 4 major clusters that accounted for 80.

Geographic and temporal trends in the molecular epidemiology and genetic mechanisms of transmitted HIV-1 drug resistance: an individual-patient- and sequence-level meta-analysis.

Background: Regional and subtype-specific mutational patterns of HIV-1 transmitted drug resistance (TDR) are essential for informing first-line antiretroviral (ARV) therapy guidelines and designing diagnostic assays for use in regions where standard genotypic resistance testing is not affordable. We sought to understand the molecular epidemiology of TDR and to identify the HIV-1 drug-resistance mutations responsible for TDR in different regions and virus subtypes.

Methods And Findings: We reviewed all GenBank submissions of HIV-1 reverse transcriptase sequences with or without protease and identified 287 studies published between March 1, 2000, and December 31, 2013, with more than 25 recently or chronically infected ARV-naïve individuals.

TRIM22 can activate the noncanonical NF-κB pathway by affecting IKKα.

Tripartite motif 22 (TRIM22) is involved in various cellular processes. It has been reported that TRIM22 can activate nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB) pathway, but the precise mechanism remains unclear. In this study, we explored the exact role of TRIM22 in activating the NF-κB pathway.

The HIV-1 accessory protein Vpr induces the degradation of the anti-HIV-1 agent APOBEC3G through a VprBP-mediated proteasomal pathway.

The host anti-HIV-1 factor APOBEC3G (A3G) plays a potential role in restricting HIV-1 replication, although this antagonist can be encountered and disarmed by the Vif protein. In this paper, we report that another HIV-1 accessory protein, viral protein R (Vpr), can interact with A3G and intervene in its antiviral behavior. The interaction of Vpr and A3G was predicted by computer-based screen and confirmed by a co-immunoprecipitation (Co-IP) approach.

The human antiviral factor TRIM11 is under the regulation of HIV-1 Vpr.

TRIM11 has been reported to be able to restrict HIV-1 replication, but the detailed aspects of the interfering mechanisms remain unclear. In this study, we demonstrated that TRIM11 mainly suppressed the early steps of HIV-1 transduction, resulting in decreased reverse transcripts. Additionally, we found that TRIM11 could inhibit HIV-1 long terminal repeat (LTR) activity, which may be related to its inhibitory effects on NF-κB.