Unit:
Κατεύθυνση Εφαρμογές της Βιολογίας στην ΙατρικήLibrary of the School of Science
Supervisors info:
Ουρανία Τσιτσιλώνη, Καθηγήτρια, Τμήμα Βιολογίας, Εθνικό και
Καποδιστριακό Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών
Μαρία Καντζανού, Επίκουρη καθηγήτρια, Τμήμα Ιατρικής, Εθνικό και
Καποδιστριακό Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών
Διονύσιος Σγούρας, Ερευνητής Α', Ελληνικό Ινστιτούτο Παστέρ
Original Title:
Ο ρόλος και η σημασία των εξουδετερωτικών αντισωμάτων στην παθογένεια της ΗΙV λοίμωξης
Translated title:
The role and importance of neutralizing antibodies in the pathogenicity of ΗΙV infection
Summary:
ΗΙV concerns the scientific community several years and, even after countless attempts, there is no protective vaccine or a definite cure which will clean the virus from the human body. The virus is permanently inserted into the nuclear genome of the cell. The clinical symptoms of ΗΙV infection are similar to those of a common flu and are not present in every patient. ΗΙV-1, ΗΙV-2 and their groups are speculated to have derived in Western-Central Africa from the strains SIVcpz and SIVsmm, respectively. HIV diagnosis is performed via detection of anti-ΗΙV antibodies or by PCR which amplifies specific conserved sequences of the virus. ΗΙV-1 is covered by an envelope which has very few Env molecules on its surface. The enzymatically cut peptides of Env, gp120 and gp41, are targets of neutralizing antibodies. The intensive glycosylation of these peptides obstructs the binding of antibodies on them. The intensively glycosylated V1 and V2 regions of gp120 reduce the sensitivity of the virus to antibodies.
In this study, a phylogenetic analysis and a statistical analysis of the PNGS of various retroviruses was performed in order to correlate PNGS with pathogenicity of retroviruses. Also, neutralization assays of Ηxb2 were performed with antibodies derived from AIDS patients and were correlated with the viral load of each patient. The effort to generate an in-house PCR protocol for the amplification of the Env gene, would have helped in the localization of PNGS, through sequencing the viral gene of patients, and in correlating these results with the neutralizing activity of the antibodies of each patient.
The highest percentage of PNGS at the protein Env of ΗΙV-1 among various retroviruses seems to be irrelevant to the high pathogenicity of ΗΙV-1. There was a correlation between sufficient neutralizing activity of antibodies against Hxb2 with high viral load in patients. In order to draw safe conclusions regarding the association between the percentage of PNGS and the neutralizing activity of the antibodies, more data need to be produced.
Main subject category:
Science
Keywords:
Antibodies, Glycosylation, Phylogeny, ΗΙV
Number of references:
170
