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An extraordinarily high diversity of HIV-1 genetic forms, unparalleled in the Americas and comparable to that found in Central Africa, is present in Cuba.
A combination of antiviral drugs known as antiretroviral therapy (ART) has shown effectiveness against the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). ART has markedly decreased mortality and morbidity among HIV-infected patients, having even reduced HIV transmission. However, an important current disadvantage, resistance development, remains to be solved. Hope is focused on developing drugs against cellular targets. This strategy is expected to prevent the emergence of viral resistance. In this study, using a comparative proteomic approach in MT4 cells treated with an anti-HIV leukocyte extract, we identified vimentin, a molecule forming intermediate filaments in the cell, as a possible target against HIV infection. We demonstrated a strong reduction of an HIV-1 based lentivirus expressing the enhanced green fluorescent protein (eGFP) in vimentin knockdown cells, and a noteworthy decrease of HIV-1 capsid protein antigen (CAp24) in those cells using a multiround infectivity assay. Electron micrographs showed changes in the structure of intermediate filaments when MT4 cells were treated with an anti-HIV leukocyte extract. Changes in the structure of intermediate filaments were also observed in vimentin knockdown MT4 cells. A synthetic peptide derived from a cytoskeleton protein showed potent inhibitory activity on HIV-1 infection, and low cytotoxicity. Our data suggest that vimentin can be a suitable target to inhibit HIV-1.
The development of prophylactic vaccines at unprecedented speed is necessary to control the global pandemic due to SARS CoV 2 infection. Vaccines approved for use and those under development intend to block viral sites binding to the hosts cellular receptors by means of neutralizing antibodies. Virus infection is mediated by the spike glycoprotein trimer on the virion surface via its receptor binding domain (RBD). Antibody response against this domain is an important outcome of the immunization and correlates well with viral neutralization. Here we show that macromolecular constructs with recombinant RBD conjugated to tetanus toxoid induce a potent immune response in laboratory animals. Some advantages of the immunization with the viral antigen coupled to tetanus toxoid have become evident such as predominantly IgG immune response due to affinity maturation and long term specific B memory cells. This work demonstrates that subunit conjugate vaccines can be an alternative for COVID19 paving the way for other viral conjugate vaccines based on the use of small viral proteins involved in the infection process.
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