BACKGROUND Chlamydia pneumoniae is drawing increasing attention as an agent of respiratory tract infection. Specific antibody prevalence in western countries is low in preschool children and reaches more than 50% in adults. However, little is known about the prevalence of this infection in immunocompromised subjects such as HIV-I infected patients. The aim of this study was to evaluate the sero...

Research on the relationship between migration and HIV infection in sub-Saharan Africa often suggests that migrants are at higher risk of HIV infection because they are more likely to engage in HIV risk behaviors than nonmigrants, and they tend to move to areas with a relatively higher HIV prevalence. Although migration may be a risk factor for HIV infection, I instead focus on the possibility ...

To investigate the possible occurrence of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) or human T-cell lymphotropic virus, type I (HTLV-I) infections in the United States prior to 1979-1981, when acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) was first recognized, we tested sera from 310 pregnant women who participated in the Collaborative Perinatal Project during the period 1959-1964 for HIV and HTLV-I anti...

this study was planned to determine hiv seroprevalence among pulmonary tuberculosis patients, to characterize the isolated mycobacteria into typical and atypical strains and to evaluate the drug resistant pattern of mycobacterial isolates. the study aims to correlate multidrug resistance (mdr) and hiv seropositivity status in pulmonary tuberculosis patients. during the year 1994-1997, 750 pulmo...

A subset of HLA-B*35 alleles, B*35-Px, are strongly associated with accelerated HIV-1 disease progression for reasons that are not understood. Interestingly, the alternative set of B*35 subtypes, B*35-PY, have no detectable impact on HIV-1 disease outcomes, even though they can present identical HIV-1 epitopes as B*35-Px molecules. Thus, the differential impact of these alleles on HIV-1 disease...

Plants of the genus Euphorbia have been investigated for different bioactive natural products. I have isolated several new and bioactive diterpenoids from different species of Euphorbia of Iran with myrsinane type skeleton. The structure of the compounds was determined using high resolution mass spectroscopy, 1 D and 2 D NMR spectral data. The stereochemistry of the diterpenoids was determined ...

Natural killer (NK) cells and dendritic cells (DC) are thought to play critical roles in the first phases of HIV infection. In this study, we examined changes in the NK cell repertoire and functions occurring in response to early interaction with HIV-infected DC, using an autologous in vitro NK/DC coculture system. We show that NK cell interaction with HIV-1-infected autologous monocyte-derived...

Modifications in donor screening and the introduction of laboratory testing of donated blood for anti-HIV-1 and anti-HTLV-I have resulted in a significant reduction in the risks of retroviral infections from blood transfusion. Presently, the American Red Cross detects an average of eight carriers of human immunodeficiency virus, type 1 (HIV-1) per 100,000 otherwise acceptable blood donors (0.00...