PATHOGENETIC AND VIROLOGIC ASPECTS OF PEDIATRIC AIDS

这项建议的总体目的是确定 在前瞻性队列中发展有症状的艾滋病毒感染和艾滋病 对至少200名血清阳性母亲所生婴儿的研究 静脉注射吸毒者或吸毒者的异性伴侣。我们会 对血清阳性母亲所生的孩子进行前瞻性跟踪 尝试定义与以下疾病相关的生物学和血清学危险因素 传播和深入研究儿科的自然历史 感染。另一个重要目标是发展病毒学和血清学 测试并确定流行病学和行为风险因素，以 描述婴儿感染艾滋病毒风险较高的母亲 感染和疾病。这将使我们能够选择目标 预防或化疗可防止婴儿或 可能会改善这种感染。 我们还将寻找艾滋病毒毒株之间的生物差异， 白细胞病毒血症水平的数量差异，以及差异 对病毒蛋白产品的抗体反应。此外，我们还将使用 病毒分离、病毒抗原检测及聚合酶链式反应 技术，在生命的早期，尽可能区分谁是 真正感染的是那些被动抗体携带者。 这些研究结合了临床护理中的积极计划和 通过实验室调查对感染艾滋病毒的儿童进行监测 使用现代分子和流行病学技术的艾滋病毒生物学。 该项目的优势在于能够将流行病学、 临床、病毒学和分子生物学研究方法 在一个实验室里解决母婴艾滋病问题。

The overall purpose of this proposal is to determine the risk of developing symptomatic HIV infection and AIDS in a prospective cohort study of at least 200 infants born to seropositive mothers who are intravenous drug abusers or heterosexual partners of drug users. We will follow prospectively children who are born to seropositive mothers and attempt to define biologic and serologic risk factors associated with transmission and to study intensively the natural history of the pediatric infection. Another important goal is to develop virologic and serologic tests and to identify epidemiologic and behavioral risk factors to characterize mothers whose infants have a high risk of developing HIV infection and disease. This will allow us to select targets for prophylaxis or chemotherapy which might prevent infection in infants or might ameliorate such infection. We will also look for biologic differences among strains of HIV, for quantitative differences in the level of leukoviremia, and the differences in antibody responses to viral protein products. In addition, we will use virus isolation, detection of viral antigens and polymerase chair reaction techniques to distinguish, as early in life as possible, infants who are truly infected from those with passive antibodies. These studies combine an active program in the clinical care and surveillance of HIV-infected children with laboratory investigations of HIV biology using contemporary molecular and epidemiologic techniques. The program's strength lies in the ability to combine epidemiologic, clinical, virologic, and molecular biologic approaches for the study of the maternal-infant AIDS problem in one laboratory setting.