HIV/AIDS

Question 1

What are the five major groups of people at high risk for developing AIDS?

Answer 1

Homosexual or bisexual men, IV drug users, recipients of blood and blood components, heterosexual contacts of members of other high risk groups, HIV infection of the newborn

Question 2

What are the three major routes of transmission of HIV? Which one is dominant?

Answer 2

Sexual contact, parenteral inoculation, passage of virus from infected mothers to their newborns

Sexual contact is dominant

Question 3

What are the two ways viral transmission occurs?

Answer 3

Direct inoculation into blood vessels by trauma, infection of dendritic or CD4+ cells within mucosa

Question 4

What are the three groups of individuals who have had parenteral transmission of HIV?

Answer 4

IV drug abusers, hemophiliacs who receive factor VIII and IX concentrates, random recipients of blood products

Question 5

What is the most common form of HIV?

Answer 5

HIV-1

Question 6

What type of virus is HIV/what family is it in?

Answer 6

Retrovirus - Lentivirus

Question 7

What does the virus core of HIV contain?

Answer 7

• Major capsid protein p24
• nucleocapsid protein p7/p9
• two copies of viral genomic RNA
• three viral enzymes: reverse transcriptase, protease, integrase

Question 8

What shape is the HIV virion? Does it have a lipid envelope?

Answer 8

Spherical - yes, lipid envelope is derived from host cell membrane

Question 9

What are the three HIV-1 subgroups?

Answer 9

M (major), O (outlier), N (neither)

Question 10

What is the most common subtype of group M HIV-1 in western Europe and the US? Which is the fastest spreading worldwide?

Answer 10

subtype B - most common

Fastest spreading: subtype/clade C

Question 11

What are the two major targets of HIV infections?

Answer 11

Immune system and CNS

Question 12

Where does virus remain latent for long periods in the body?

Answer 12

Lymphoid tissues

Question 13

What protein on HIV binds to CD4 on cell surface?

Answer 13

gp120

Question 14

What co-receptors does gp120 bind to?

Answer 14

CCR5 and CXCR4

Question 15

HIV infects memory and activated T cells but is inefficient at productively infecting ______ T cells.

Answer 15

Naive or un-activated

Question 16

What is the name of the active form of enzyme that naive T cells have that introduces mutations in the HIV genome? What type of mutations does it induce

Answer 16

APOBEC3G: cytosine to uracil mutations in viral DNA

Question 17

What viral protein does HIV have that binds to APOBEC3g and promotes its degradation?

Answer 17

Vif

Question 18

What type of cell is there a massive loss of with HIV infection?

Answer 18

CD4+ T cells

Question 19

What type of cell undergoes a paradoxical activation leading to very large germinal centers with HIV infection?

Answer 19

B cells

Question 20

What are the three phases of clinical presentation of HIV infection?

Answer 20

Acute retroviral syndrome, middle chronic phase, clinical AIDS

Question 21

What generally causes death in patients with AIDS?

Answer 21

Opportunistic infections - often pneumonia from fungus Pneumocystic jiroveci

Question 22

What is the most common fungal infection in patients with AIDS?

Answer 22

Candidiasis

Question 23

What disease has there been a global resurgence of due to AIDS epidemic?

Answer 23

TB

Question 24

Patients with AIDS have a high incidence of what types of cancers?

Answer 24

Kaposi’s sarcoma, B-cell lymphoma, cervical carcinoma (women), anal carcinoma (men)

Question 25

What HIV protein promotes CD4 degradation to increase virion release?

Answer 25

vpu

Question 26

What part of the HIV genome contains control regions that bind host TFs that are crucial for cytokine production?

Answer 26

LTR - long terminal repeats