20th Annual Student Research Conference
Science
Determining drug-resistance in strains of HIV-1
Martha A. Claeys-Jacobson
Dr. Michael Lockhart, Faculty Mentor
Human Immunodeficiency Virus type 1 (HIV-1) in infected individuals is capable of developing a resistance to different antiretroviral therapy that the infected individual may be using over a period of time. The increase of drug-resistant individuals in Zambia, Africa may be caused by the widespread use of the drug Nevirapine. Two patients in Africa appeared to be clinically failing their antiretroviral therapy, which consists only of Nevirapine. Their drug-resistance was tested with a quantitative assay. This novel single-cell-level phenotypic assay used patient-derived gag-pol sequences that were cloned into an HIV-1 reporter virus and expressed an endoplasmic reticulum-retained Env-green fluorescent protien fusion. When the virus infected, cells emitted a green fluorescence The measurement of fluorescence determined infectivity. Different dilutions of the drug Nevirapine were administered to the infected cells and resistance was measured. Overall, the aim of this project was to determine if patients who were clinically failing therapy contain a drug-resistant virus that is unaffected by the administration of the drug Nevirapine.
Keywords: HIV-1, Nevirapine, drug-resistance, Zambia, flourescence
Topic(s):Biology
Presentation Type: Oral Paper
Session: 46-3
Location: VH 1408
Time: 1:45 pm