Quantitation of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 during pregnancy: relationship of viral titer to mother-to-child transmission and stability of viral load.
Journal Title: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America - Year 1994, Vol 91, Issue 17
Abstract
To develop strategies to prevent mother-to-child transmission of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1), it is important to define the factors determining it. We examined the relationship between maternal HIV-1 titer and the occurrence of mother-to-child transmission. In addition, we quantitated HIV-1 longitudinally in mothers during pregnancy, at delivery, and up to 1 year postpartum. To examine transmission, we prospectively studied 19 mother-child pairs; in 5 pairs, HIV-1 transmission occurred. We used endpoint dilution culture of peripheral blood mononuclear cells to determine maternal viral titer and found that although 4 of 6 (67%) women with viral titers of > or = 125 HIV-1 infectious units per 10(6) cells transmitted HIV-1 to their infants, only 1 of 13 (7.6%) women with lower viral titers transmitted (P = 0.01). Twelve of the 19 mothers had HIV-1 loads determined serially 3-8 times over periods ranging from 18 to 65 weeks. Viral titers varied greatly between the 12 women, but the viral load in each woman remained stable over time. In this cohort, HIV-1 viral load remained stable during pregnancy and the greater the maternal viral burden, the more likely that transmission occurred. These two related findings suggest that determination of HIV-1 titers early in pregnancy may predict which women are at high risk of transmitting to their infants and may be used to counsel HIV-1-infected women of childbearing age. These data identify maternal viral titer as a major determinant of mother-to-child HIV-1 transmission and thereby provide the scientific rationale for therapeutic strategies designed to interrupt transmission by lowering viral load.
Authors and Affiliations
B Weiser, S Nachman, P Tropper, K H Viscosi, R Grimson, G Baxter, C Reyelt, N Hutcheon, H Burger
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP82847
- DOI -
- Views 98
- Downloads 0
Malondialdehyde adducts in DNA arrest transcription by T7 RNA polymerase and mammalian RNA polymerase II.
Malondialdehyde, a genotoxic byproduct of lipid peroxidation, reacts with guanine in DNA to form pyrimido[1,2-alpha]purin-10(3H)one (M(1)dG), the first endogenous DNA lesion found to be a target of nucleotide excision re...
Quantitation of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 during pregnancy: relationship of viral titer to mother-to-child transmission and stability of viral load.
To develop strategies to prevent mother-to-child transmission of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1), it is important to define the factors determining it. We examined the relationship between maternal HIV-1 tite...
Transcript cleavage by RNA polymerase II arrested by a cyclobutane pyrimidine dimer in the DNA template.
A current model for transcription-coupled DNA repair is that RNA polymerase, arrested at a DNA lesion, directs the repair machinery to the transcribed strand of an active gene. To help elucidate this role of RNA polymera...
Independent and combined analyses of sequences from all three genomic compartments converge on the root of flowering plant phylogeny.
Plant phylogenetic estimates are most likely to be reliable when congruent evidence is obtained independently from the mitochondrial, plastid, and nuclear genomes with all methods of analysis. Here, results are presented...
Organization of actin cytoskeleton in normal and regenerating arterial endothelial cells.
The distribution of actin stress fibers in normal and regenerating (after endothelial denudation by means of a balloon catheter) rabbit aortic endothelial cells has been studied by means of immunofluorescence with human...