The impact of COVID-19 on the HIV continuum of care: challenges, innovations, and opportunities.

Introduction: In February 2019, the United States (US) launched the Ending the HIV Epidemic (EHE) initiative with emphasis on improving the various steps of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) prevention and care continuum. However, in March 2020, the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic was declared, curtailing efforts to end the epidemic in the US.

Areas Covered: To describe the impact of the pandemic on EHE in the US, the authors performed a comprehensive literature review focusing on outcomes at each step of the HIV care continuum.

Mutations in SIX1 Associated with Branchio-oto-Renal Syndrome (BOR) Differentially Affect Otic Expression of Putative Target Genes.

Several single-nucleotide mutations in underlie branchio-otic/branchio-oto-renal (BOR) syndrome, but the clinical literature has not been able to correlate different variants with specific phenotypes. We previously assessed whether variants in either the cofactor binding domain (V17E, R110W) or the DNA binding domain (W122R, Y129C) might differentially affect early embryonic gene expression, and found that each variant had a different combination of effects on neural crest and placode gene expression. Since the otic vesicle gives rise to the inner ear, which is consistently affected in BOR, herein we focused on whether the variants differentially affected the otic expression of genes previously found to be likely Six1 targets.