HIV Diagnostics and Vaccines: It Takes Two to Tango.

Current serologic tests for HIV screening and confirmation of infection present challenges to the adoption of HIV vaccines. The detection of vaccine-induced HIV-1 antibodies in the absence of HIV-1 infection, referred to as vaccine-induced seropositivity/seroreactivity, confounds the interpretation of test results, causing misclassification of HIV-1 status with potential affiliated stigmatization. For HIV vaccines to be widely adopted with high community confidence and uptake, tests are needed that are agnostic to the vaccination status of tested individuals (ie, positive only for true HIV-1 infection).

Exercise training decreases the load and changes the content of circulating SDS-resistant protein aggregates in patients with heart failure with reduced ejection fraction.

Background: Heart failure (HF) often disrupts the protein quality control (PQC) system leading to protein aggregate accumulation. Evidence from tissue biopsies showed that exercise restores PQC system in HF; however, little is known about its effects on plasma proteostasis.

Aim: To determine the effects of exercise training on the load and composition of plasma SDS-resistant protein aggregates (SRA) in patients with HF with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF).

Towards Novel HIV-1 Serodiagnostic Tests without Vaccine-Induced Seroreactivity.

Vaccine-induced seroreactivity/positivity (VISR/P) poses a significant and common challenge to HIV vaccine implementation, as up to 95% of vaccine recipients may be misclassified as having HIV infection by current HIV screening and confirmatory serological assays. We investigated whether internal HIV proteins could be used to overcome VISR and discovered a set of 4 antigens (gp41 endodomain, p31 integrase, p17 matrix protein, and Nef) that are recognized by antibodies produced in individuals with HIV infection but not in vaccinated individuals. When evaluated in a multiplex double-antigen bridging ELISA, this antigen combination had specificities of 98.

Characterization of Plasma SDS-Protein Aggregation Profile of Patients with Heart Failure with Preserved Ejection Fraction.

This study characterizes the plasma levels and composition of SDS-resistant aggregates (SRAs) in patients with heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) to infer molecular pathways associated with disease and/or proteostasis disruption. Twenty adults (ten with HFpEF and ten age-matched individuals) were included. Circulating SRAs were resolved by diagonal two-dimensional SDS-PAGE, and their protein content was identified by mass spectrometry.

Sarkosyl: A milder detergent than SDS for identifying proteins with moderately high hyperstability using gel electrophoresis.

Sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) is a detergent used as a strong denaturant of proteins in gel electrophoresis. It has previously been shown that certain hyperstable, also known as kinetically stable, proteins are resistant to SDS and thus require heating for their denaturation in the presence of SDS. Because of its high denaturing strength, relatively few proteins are resistant to SDS thereby limiting the current use of SDS-PAGE for identifying hyperstable degradation-resistant proteins.