An infectious virus which causes persistent lymphocytosis, lymphadenopathy, lesions in the central nervous system (CNS), progressive weakness and emaciation was previously isolated from the leukocytes of cattle. Our present studies show that this virus encodes a reverse transcriptase (RT) with Mg2+ cation preference, replicates and induces syncytia in a variety of embryonic bovine tissues in vitro, and has a morphology most similar to the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Moreover, serologic analyses have demonstrated a conservation of epitopes between the major core protein of this bovine retrovirus and HIV. Shared antigenic determinants were also observed with other pathogenic retroviruses of the lentivirus subfamily. To resolve the phylogenetic relationship of this virus, proviral molecular clones were derived and used to determine the nucleotide sequence of the highly conserved RT domain. The sequence data and serologic analyses together show that this bovine retrovirus is a novel lentivirus related to HIV and other lentiviruses. We propose that this virus be tentatively named bovine immunodeficiency-like virus (BIV) to reflect its genetic relationship and biological similarity to HIV.
We designed a transdermal system to serve as a delivery platform for benfotiamine utilizing the attributes of passive penetration enhancing molecules to penetrate through the outer layers of skin combined with the advance of incorporating various peripherally-acting vasodilators to enhance drug uptake.
Benfotiamine, incorporated into this transdermal formulation, was applied to skin in an animal model in order to determine the ability to deliver this thiamine pro-drug effectively to the sub-epithelial layers. In this proof of concept study in guinea pigs, we found that a single topical application of either a solubilized form of benfotiamine (15 mg) or a microcrystalline suspension form (25 mg) resulted in considerable increases of the dephosphorylated benfotiamine (S-benzoylthiamine) in the skin tissue as well as in significant increases in the thiamine and thiamine phosphate pools compared to control animals. The presence of a ~8000x increase in thiamine and increases in its phosphorylated derivatives in the epidermis
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