OBJECTIVE The metabolic syndrome (MetS) is a cluster of cardiovascular risk factors and a major cause of morbidity and mortality in the western world. Despite the fact that cardiovascular diseases are a major cause of mortality in patients with ANCA-associated vasculitis (AAV), the relationship between MetS and AAV has not yet been explored. Thus it is the aim of this study to investigate the p...

The adeno-associated virus (AAV) vector system is based on nonpathogenic and helper-virus-dependent parvoviruses. The vector system offers safe, efficient, and long-term in vivo gene transfer in numerous tissues. Clinical trials using AAV vectors have demonstrated vector safety as well as efficiency. The increasing interest in the use of AAV for clinical studies demands large quantities of vect...

BACKGROUND Despite the many advantages of an aortic allograft valve (AAV) over a prosthetic aortic valve, its durability is suboptimal. The aims of the present study were to document characteristic features of AAV dysfunction and to investigate factors influencing the development of such dysfunction. METHODS AND RESULTS A group of 570 patients (mean age, 48+/-16 years) with a cryopreserved AA...

To better understand the relationship between primate adeno-associated viruses (AAVs) and those of other mammals, we have cloned and sequenced the genome of an AAV found as a contaminant in two isolates of bovine adenovirus that was reported to be serologically distinct from primate AAVs. The bovine AAV (BAAV) genome has 4,693 bp, and its organization is similar to that of other AAV isolates. T...

A hybrid adeno-associated virus (AAV)/simian virus 40 (SV40) genome is described. In this construct SV40 regulatory sequences, including the early promoter/enhancers and origin of DNA replication, were substituted for the AAV p5 promoter, which normally controls expression of the AAV rep gene. The hybrid genome was phenotypically indistinguishable from wild-type AAV in human cells in the presen...

Adeno-associated virus (AAV) replicates its DNA exclusively by a leading-strand DNA replication mechanism and requires coinfection with a helper virus, such as adenovirus, to achieve a productive infection. In previous work, we described an in vitro AAV replication assay that required the AAV terminal repeats (the origins for DNA replication), the AAV Rep protein (the origin binding protein), a...

Adeno-associated virus (AAV) is a key candidate in the development of gene therapy. In this work, we used surface plasmon resonance spectroscopy to study the interaction between AAV and heparin and other glycosaminoglycans (GAGs). Surface plasmon resonance results revealed that heparin binds to AAV with an extremely high affinity. Solution competition studies showed that binding of AAV to hepar...

Background: Anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibody (ANCA)associated vasculitis (AAV) comprises microscopic polyangiitis (MPA), granulomatosis with polyangiitis (GPA) and eosinophilic GPA (EGPA). Myeloperoxidase (MPO) and proteinase 3 (PR3) are the main antigens for ANCA. AAV is a common multisystem autoimmune disease and most of the studies on AAV have been conducted in Western countries. Nowaday...

The adeno-associated virus 2 (AAV), a single-stranded DNA-containing, nonpathogenic human parvovirus, has gained attention as a potentially useful vector for human gene therapy. However, the single-stranded nature of the viral genome significantly impacts upon the transduction efficiency, because the second-strand viral DNA synthesis is the rate-limiting step. We hypothesized that a host-cell p...

Adeno-associated virus type 2 (AAV) vectors have been used for gene expression in respiratory epithelial cells and may be useful in gene therapy for diseases like cystic fibrosis (CF) which affect the airways. The AAV p5 promoter together with the AAV inverted terminal repeat (ITR) forms a 263-base pair cassette which mediated efficient expression in a CF bronchial epithelial cell line. We repo...