No description available.

Despite advances in the treatment of HIV-1 a cure remains elusive. A significant barrier to the eradication of the virus from an infected individual is a pool of cells infected with transcriptionally silent proviruses. A key pillar of the strategy to eradicate latent viruses has been called 'kick and kill', whereby the latent virus is stimulated to transcribe rendering the host cell vulnerable to eradication by cytotoxic T cells. Optimising the reactivation signal is therefore critical to this approach. Here the established model system of latency 'J-lat' is used to probe optimum reactivation signals. Single clones are observed to respond to maximal stimulation with a single agent with a fixed proportion of cells. Here it is shown that this proportion can be overcome by dosing with two agents in combination and critically that maximum synergies between agents occur at concentrations of agents close to those achieved in vivo. The role of SETDB1 recruitment by the recently described HUSH complex is examined using shRNA knockdowns of these proteins. Knockdown does not increase expression from the majority of J-lat clones tested. Viral factors which influence silencing and reactivation from latency have not been explored to the same extent. Here mutations affecting the binding of splicing factors to HIV-1 mRNA were cloned into laboratory viruses. A reduction in splice factor binding is seen to change the use of splice junctions required for the production of Tat mRNA; in turn this alters the rate at which proviruses are silenced. In addition the threshold for transcription in response to stimulation is increased in mutants with reduced splice factor binding.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Case Western Reserve University, 2008. / [School of Medicine] Department of Molecular Biology and Microbiology. Includes bibliographical references.

No description available.

No description available.

Early in the course of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection a population of latently infected cells is established which persists despite long-term anti-retroviral treatment. This latent reservoir of HIV-infected cells, which reflects mechanisms of transcriptional repression, is the major barrier to cure. Efforts to target the latent reservoir have been inefficient, indicating a need for a more complete understanding of how HIV transcription is regulated. The molecular networks involved in the regulation of HIV transcription remain incompletely defined. I hypothesized that utilization of a high throughput enhanced yeast one-hybrid assay would reveal novel host transcription factor-long terminal repeat (LTR) interactions and transcriptional networks that regulate HIV. The screen identified 42 human transcription factors and 85 total protein-DNA interactions with HIV LTRs. I investigated a subset of these factors for transcriptional activity in cell-based models of infection. Krüppel-like factors 2 and 3 (KLF2 and KLF3) are repressors of HIV-1 and HIV-2 transcription whereas PLAG1-like zinc finger 1 (PLAGL1) is an activator of HIV-2 transcription. These factors regulate HIV expression through direct protein-DNA interactions and correlate with epigenetic modifications of the HIV LTR. Multiple signals converging from the cellular environment and cell-cell interactions converge at the HIV LTR to determine HIV replication and transcription. Previous work in our lab has shown that strong signaling through the T cell receptor (TCR) was required to support HIV expression and the establishment of an inducible latent infection, whereas weak TCR signaling was insufficient for these outcomes. I hypothesized that dendritic cells-CD4+ T cell interactions provide signals that compensate for weak TCR signaling, supporting HIV-1 expression and generation of inducible latent infection. I used CD4+ T cells that express chimeric antigen receptors in a dendritic cell coculture model to deliver differential signals to CD4+ T cells during cell-to-cell transmission of HIV. I found that signals from dendritic cells compensate for weak TCR signaling, facilitating cell activation, HIV expression and establishment of an inducible infection.