HIV infects and depletes CD4+ T cells in Gut Associated Lymphoid Tissues (GALT) of the Gastrointestinal (GI) tract at a very early stage of infection. Furthermore, GALT are the major reservoirs of HIV-1 and may constantly shed virus and CD4+ T cells into the intestinal lumen throughout the entire course of infection. We hypothesize that the dynamic changes of HIV-1 and CD4+ T cell quantities in feces are linked to disease progression and can be used to predict disease prognosis. The aims of this study are to establish sensitive methods for detection and quantitation of HIV-1 and CD4 mRNA in feces, and to use the methods to monitor the amount of HIV-1 RNA/DNA and CD4 mRNA in feces samples of HIV infected patients and to correlate the findings with disease progression. In addition, since urine may potentially serve as a vehicle for HIV-1 transmission we have also measured HIV-1 RNA/DNA in the urine samples from the same population used for the feces study. Our results showed that using normal feces spiked with known copies of DNA and RNA, as low as 2.5 copies of HIV-1 DNA and 40 copies of HIV-1 RNA were detected per input in both nested PCR and RT-nested PCR reactions respectively. Human CD4 mRNA was also detected in feces. From HIV-1 infected volunteers of the Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study (MACS), HIV-1 DNA, RNA and human CD4 mRNA was detected in 8%, 19% and 31%, respectively, in the feces samples from patients with detectable viral load in blood. In the urine samples from the same study population, HIV-1 DNA was detected in 26% of HIV-1 infected donors and this detection is not always correlated with the presence of detectable viral load in blood. This study has major Public health significance as it demonstrates that HIV-1 RNA/DNA could be detected in feces and urine samples, which may lead to the development of a future non-invasive approach to evaluate disease progression and prognosis. In addition, our study demonstrated, for the first time, the presence of human CD4 mRNA in fecal specimens of infected donors, which could be used as a valuable tool in the future to assess the pathogenesis of Gut Associated Lymphoid Tissue over the course of HIV-1 infection.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-04052009-214806 |
| Date | 29 June 2009 |
| Creators | Chakrabarti, Ayan K |
| Contributors | YUE CHEN, PHALGUNI GUPTA, SHARON RIDDLER, CHARLES R. RINALDO |
| Publisher | University of Pittsburgh |
| Source Sets | University of Pittsburgh |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-04052009-214806/ |
| Rights | restricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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