Characterization of a dengue NS4B inhibitor originating from an HCV small molecule library.

Dengue is the most important mosquito-transmitted viral disease and a major global health concern. Over the last decade, dengue virus (DENV) drug discovery and development has intensified, however, this has not resulted in approved DENV-specific antiviral treatments yet. DENV and hepatitis C virus (HCV) belong to the same Flaviviridae family and, in contrast to DENV, antiviral treatments for HCV have been licensed.

CRF19_cpx is an Evolutionary fit HIV-1 Variant Strongly Associated With Rapid Progression to AIDS in Cuba.

Background: Clinicians reported an increasing trend of rapid progression (RP) (AIDS within 3 years of infection) in Cuba.

Methods: Recently infected patients were prospectively sampled, 52 RP at AIDS diagnosis (AIDS-RP) and 21 without AIDS in the same time frame (non-AIDS). 22 patients were sampled at AIDS diagnosis (chronic-AIDS) retrospectively assessed as > 3 years infected.

Horizontal gene transfer from human host to HIV-1 reverse transcriptase confers drug resistance and partly compensates for replication deficits.

We investigated the origin and the effect of insertion D67D-THGERDLGPA within HIV-1 RT from a patient failing antiviral therapy. The insertion developed within the context of pre-existing NRTI and NNRTI mutations (M41L, L210W, T215Y and N348I). Concurrently, the NRTI mutations T69I and V118I and the NNRTI mutations K103N and Y181C were detected for the first time.

HIV-1 genetic variation and drug resistance development.

Up until 10 years ago, basic and clinical HIV-1 research was mainly performed on HIV-1 subtype B that predominated in resource-rich settings. Over the past decade, HIV-1 care and therapy has been scaled up substantially in Latin America, Africa and Asia. These regions are largely dominated by non-B subtype infections, and especially the African continent is affected by the HIV pandemic.

Evaluation of the automatic editing tool RECall for HIV-1 pol and V3 loop sequences.

Genotypic drug resistance testing is routine practice in HIV-1 clinical care. The visual interpretation of sequencing electropherograms is labour-intensive and subject to intra- and inter-assay variability because decisions are based on operators' judgments. In this study the performance of the automatic editing tool RECall was compared to the current standard of editing manually and editing using the tool ViroSeq.

The rare HIV-1 gp41 mutations 43T and 50V elevate enfuvirtide resistance levels of common enfuvirtide resistance mutations that did not impact susceptibility to sifuvirtide.

Mutations that are selected at low frequency and/or reside outside the enfuvirtide target region, amino acid 36-45 of gp41, might still be important determinants for drug resistance. This study aimed to investigate the phenotypic impact against enfuvirtide and sifuvirtide of uncharacterized gp41 mutations 42G, 43T and 50V, selected in patients failing enfuvirtide-containing regimens. As single mutations, neither 42G, 43T nor 50V conferred resistance to enfuvirtide.