Project description:<p>The overarching goal of this project is to identify and characterize genetic determinants of HIV 1 susceptibility and resistance in samples of African American (AA) and European American (EA) injection drug users (IDUs) by conducting (1) a case/control genome-wide association (GWA) study of HIV 1 infection (positive/negative); (2) a case-only GWA study of viral load among HIV+ IDUs. The study uses existing samples and data from Urban Health Study (UHS) (PI: Alex Kral), which was the longest-running study of street-recruited IDUs in North America, from 1986-2005. UHS was a serial, cross-sectional sero-epidemiological study. Data were collected every 6 months in communities with a high prevalence of injection drug use in the San Francisco Bay Area. It used targeted sampling in neighborhoods at easily accessible community field sites, such as churches, single room occupancy hotels, and community centers. Eligibility criteria for initial entry to the study were (1) injection drug use in past 30 days; (2) ability to provide informed consent; and (3) age 18 or older. The UHS cohort includes over 9,000 African American and European American IDUs whose serum samples have been stored and data are available on HIV antibody status, HIV risk behaviors, drug abuse and demographics.</p> <p>The current study includes 984 HIV+ cases and 2,243 HIV- controls. Approximately two HIV- controls per case were frequency matched on: (1) self-reported ancestry; (2) sex; (3) age; (4) year of ascertainment; and (5) HIV risk class. This GWAS (DA026141) was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA; PI: Eric O. Johnson). Funding support for genotyping, which was performed at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Inherited Disease Research (CIDR), was provided by NIDA and the NIH contract "High throughput genotyping for studying the genetic contributions to human disease"(HHSN268200782096C). </p>
Project description:<p>The overarching goal of this project is to identify and characterize genetic determinants of HIV 1 susceptibility and resistance in samples of African American (AA) and European American (EA) injection drug users (IDUs) by conducting (1) a case/control genome-wide association (GWA) study of HIV 1 infection (positive/negative); (2) a case-only GWA study of viral load among HIV+ IDUs. The study uses existing samples and data from Urban Health Study (UHS) (PI: Alex Kral), which was the longest-running study of street-recruited IDUs in North America, from 1986-2005. UHS was a serial, cross-sectional sero-epidemiological study. Data were collected every 6 months in communities with a high prevalence of injection drug use in the San Francisco Bay Area. It used targeted sampling in neighborhoods at easily accessible community field sites, such as churches, single room occupancy hotels, and community centers. Eligibility criteria for initial entry to the study were (1) injection drug use in past 30 days; (2) ability to provide informed consent; and (3) age 18 or older. The UHS cohort includes over 9,000 African American and European American IDUs whose serum samples have been stored and data are available on HIV antibody status, HIV risk behaviors, drug abuse and demographics.</p> <p>The current study includes 984 HIV+ cases and 2,243 HIV- controls. Approximately two HIV- controls per case were frequency matched on: (1) self-reported ancestry; (2) sex; (3) age; (4) year of ascertainment; and (5) HIV risk class. This GWAS (DA026141) was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA; PI: Eric O. Johnson). Funding support for genotyping, which was performed at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Inherited Disease Research (CIDR), was provided by NIDA and the NIH contract "High throughput genotyping for studying the genetic contributions to human disease"(HHSN268200782096C). </p>
Project description:Despite effective antiretroviral therapy (ART), HIV-1 persists as an integrated DNA provirus in the genome of infected cells. Host cells can regulate HIV-1 transcription at the HIV-1 integration site dependent on the location (actively transcribed genes vs repressive chromatin) and the orientation (in the same vs opposite orientation of the host gene transcription) of HIV-1 integration. Presumably, HIV-1 follows the host gene transcriptional activity at the HIV-1 integration site. We interrogated HIV-1-host gene transcriptional interactions at the HIV-1 integration site using CRISPR-mediated activation and inhibition of the host genes (in which HIV-1 was integrated) in seven HIV-1-infected Jurkat T cell clones with known HIV-1 integration sites in the introns of actively transcribed genes and a non-genic region. Using ATAC-seq and strand-specific RNA-seq to examine chromatin accessibility and RNA transcription levels, we found that host gene activation did not increase HIV-1 transcription, while host gene inhibition did not decrease HIV-1 transcription. HIV-1 drove high levels of aberrant host RNA transcription regardless of the HIV-1 integration orientation. HIV-1-driven aberrant host RNA transcription was inhibited by CRISPR-mediated HIV-1 inhibition but not by CRISPR-mediated host gene activation or inhibition. When HIV-1 was integrated into a non-genic region, HIV-1 increased host chromatin accessibility and drove high levels of aberrant host RNA transcription. Overall, HIV-1 LTR promoter-driven transcriptional activity dominated over the host promoter activity. HIV-1 transcription does not passively follow host gene activity. Our results highlight that despite effective ART, silencing HIV-1 promoter is required to inhibit HIV-1-driven aberrant host gene expression and chronic immune activation.
Project description:Despite effective antiretroviral therapy (ART), HIV-1 persists as an integrated DNA provirus in the genome of infected cells. Host cells can regulate HIV-1 transcription at the HIV-1 integration site dependent on the location (actively transcribed genes vs repressive chromatin) and the orientation (in the same vs opposite orientation of the host gene transcription) of HIV-1 integration. Presumably, HIV-1 follows the host gene transcriptional activity at the HIV-1 integration site. We interrogated HIV-1-host gene transcriptional interactions at the HIV-1 integration site using CRISPR-mediated activation and inhibition of the host genes (in which HIV-1 was integrated) in seven HIV-1-infected Jurkat T cell clones with known HIV-1 integration sites in the introns of actively transcribed genes and a non-genic region. Using ATAC-seq and strand-specific RNA-seq to examine chromatin accessibility and RNA transcription levels, we found that host gene activation did not increase HIV-1 transcription, while host gene inhibition did not decrease HIV-1 transcription. HIV-1 drove high levels of aberrant host RNA transcription regardless of the HIV-1 integration orientation. HIV-1-driven aberrant host RNA transcription was inhibited by CRISPR-mediated HIV-1 inhibition but not by CRISPR-mediated host gene activation or inhibition. When HIV-1 was integrated into a non-genic region, HIV-1 increased host chromatin accessibility and drove high levels of aberrant host RNA transcription. Overall, HIV-1 LTR promoter-driven transcriptional activity dominated over the host promoter activity. HIV-1 transcription does not passively follow host gene activity. Our results highlight that despite effective ART, silencing HIV-1 promoter is required to inhibit HIV-1-driven aberrant host gene expression and chronic immune activation.
Project description:Using HIV-1 RNASortSeq, we identified HIV-1-infected cells containing inducible HIV-1 for RNAseq from resting CD4+ T cells treated with PMA/ionomycin for 16 hours from eight antiretroviral therapy treated, virally suppressed, HIV-1-infected individuals. Using custom bioinformatic pipeline, we identified HIV-1 genomic RNA, host RNA and HIV-1-host chimeric RNA junctions.
Project description:Using microRNA array analyses of in vitro HIV-1-infected CD4+ cells, we find that several host microRNAs are significantly up- or downregulated around the time HIV-1 infection peaks in vitro. While microRNA-223 levels were significantly enriched in HIV-1-infected CD4+CD8? PBMCs, microRNA-29a/b, microRNA-155 and microRNA-21 levels were significantly reduced. Based on the potential for microRNA binding sites in a conserved sequence of the Nef-3?-LTR, several host microRNAs potentially could affect HIV-1 gene expression. Among those microRNAs, the microRNA-29 family has seed complementarity in the HIV-1 3?-UTR, but the potential suppressive effect of microRNA-29 on HIV-1 is severely blocked by the secondary structure of the target region. Our data support a possible regulatory circuit at the peak of HIV-1 replication which involves downregulation of microRNA-29, expression of Nef, the apoptosis of host CD4 cells and upregulation of microRNA-223. Time course of HIV infection on CD4 cells