| dc.description.abstract | Background:
Altered susceptibility to HIV1 infection has been
observed in multiple cohort studies. One of the best characterized
HIV1 exposed yet uninfected groups is a commercial sex worker
cohort from Nairobi, Kenya. (Fowke, et al, 1996; Plummer, et al,
1999; Ball, et al, 2007) A gene expression analysis conducted
showed differential regulation of the glycolysis/gluconeogenesis
pathway in HIV-1 exposed yet seronegative CSWs. (Songok, et al,
2012)
Glucose is utilized by lymphocytes as their primary fuel source
for cell survival, size, activation and cytokine production. The
first critical regulatory step in glucose metabolism is glucose entry
into cells through facilitated diffusion by proteins of the glucose
transporter (GLUT) family. (Fox et al, 2005; Jacobs, et al, 2008)
Over-expression of GLUT1 leads to increased glucose uptake and
glycolysis which is required to mount a functional immune re-
sponse necessary for rapid cell growth and proliferation in T
lymphocytes. (Maclver et al, 2008)
Methods:
The study population was drawn from the Pumwani
Sex Worker Cohort, Nairobi including: HIV highly exposed yet
seronegative (HESNs) CSWs (
>
7 years); newly enrolled HIV-
uninfected (
<
7 years); HIV-infected and lowly-exposed HIV
negative antenatal clinic attendees (low risk group).Total RNA
was extracted from PBMCs using Trizol; cDNA was synthesized
and relative mRNA expression determined using SYBR Green by
quantitative real time PCR.
Results:
Each assay was normalized using 18s rRNA gene. We
observed a significant difference between highly exposed yet
uninfected (HESNs) and newly enrolled HIV uninfected CSWs.
(p
=
0.0056) There was no significant difference between HESNs
with the HIV negative antenatal clinic attendees (p
=
0.8628) and
HIV infected CSWs (p
=
0.5399).
Conclusion:
We observed significantly lower mRNA ex-
pression of Glut1 in HESNs when compared to their unin-
fected yet susceptible counterparts. Following studies of Glut
1 protein expression and uptake studies are underway to
understand the role Glut1 in glucose metabolism in HIV
resistance | en_US |
