Birth control shot increases the risk of HIV

Transitioning away from a popular contraceptive shot known as DMPA could help protect women in Sub-Saharan Africa and other high-risk regions from becoming infected with HIV, according to a research review. The predominant contraceptive in Sub-Saharan Africa is depotmedroxyprogesterone acetate (DMPA) -- a birth control shot administered every three months.

Human studies suggest DMPA use may raise the risk of HIV infection by 40 percent. Other forms of contraceptive shots do not show the same correlation with HIV infection. Increasing availability of contraceptives that use a different form of the female hormone progestin than the one found in DMPA could help reduce the risk of HIV transmission. In addition to these clinical studies, the review's authors examined animal, cell and biochemical research on the form of progestin used in DMPA -- medroxprogesterone acetate, or MPA.

The analysis revealed MPA acts differently than other forms of progestin used in contraceptives. MPA behaves like the stress hormone cortisol in the cells of the genital tract that can come in contact with HIV. The increased rate of HIV infection among women using DMPA contraceptive shots is likely due to multiple reasons, including decreases in immune function and the protective barrier function of the female genital tract.
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Human brain is one of the HIV reservoirs

Scientists have created a model that can monitor the movement and development of an HIV infection in the brain. HIV virus can move to brain of infected macrophage 14 days after infection.

Antiretroviral drugs cannot get into the brain easily, brain is one of the reservoirs of HIV virus. Scientists have confirmed that HIV can survive in another less-explored type of white blood cell.

It can also persist exclusively in macrophages, large white blood cells found in the liver, lung, bone marrow and brain. This is the reason why Antiretroviral drugs can suppress the virus but not being able to kill it.

There were some evidence of brain damage from early HIV infection. The
virus can still affect the brain even if there is undetectable levels of HIV in the blood.

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Patentiflorin A more effective for HIV treatment than AZT

Patentiflorin A, is a chemical derived from the willow-leaved Justicia, It is a compound in a plant found in Southeast Asia.

AZT is an anti-viral drug that reduces the amount of HIV virus in the body and reduces the risk of developing AIDS.

Pateniflotin A is more effective than
AZT for treating HIV virus at the early stage of the infection and when the
virus enters macrophage cells.

It's also effective against drug resistance strains of HIV virus, it may be useful in future for producing better HIV drug.

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Gene editing kills HIV-1 infection in animals

A permanent cure for HIV infection remains difficult because the virus can hide in their reservoirs.

 Scientists at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University (LKSOM) and the University of Pittsburgh show that they can remove HIV DNA from the genomes of living animals to prevent further infection.

They  demonstrate that HIV-1 replication can be removed completely and the virus eliminated from infected cells in animals with a powerful gene editing technology known as CRISPR/Cas9.

Previously, scientists used transgenic rat and mouse models with HIV-1 DNA incorporated into the genome of every tissue of the animals' bodies. They demonstrated that their strategy could delete the targeted fragments of HIV-1 from the genome in most tissues in the experimental animals.

In the new study, the team genetically inactivated HIV-1 in transgenic mice, reducing the RNA expression of viral genes by roughly 60 to 95 percent, confirming their earlier findings. They then tested their system in mice acutely infected with EcoHIV, the mouse equivalent of human HIV-1.

"During acute infection, HIV actively replicates. With EcoHIV mice, scientists were able to investigate the ability of the CRISPR/Cas9 strategy to block viral replication and potentially prevent systemic infection." The excision efficiency of their strategy reached 96 percent in EcoHIV mice, providing the first evidence for HIV-1 eradication by prophylactic treatment with a CRISPR/Cas9 system.

In the third animal model, latent HIV-1 infection was recapitulated in humanized mice engrafted with human immune cells, including T cells, followed by HIV-1 infection.

 "These animals carry latent HIV in the genomes of human T cells, where the virus can escape detection," Dr. Hu explained. Following a single treatment with CRISPR/Cas9, viral fragments were successfully excised from latently infected human cells embedded in mouse tissues and organs.

In all three animal models, the researchers utilized a recombinant adeno-associated viral (rAAV) vector delivery system based on a subtype known as AAV-DJ/8. "The AAV-DJ/8 subtype combines multiple serotypes, giving us a broader range of cell targets for the delivery of our CRISPR/Cas9 system,"