Korean red ginseng attenuates HIV-1 in vivo; High frequency of grossly deleted nef genes in HIV-1 infected long-term slow progressors treated with Korean red ginseng

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

To investigate the association between Korean red ginseng (KRG) intake in HIV-1 infected patients and occurrence of grossly deleted nef genes (g?nef), we characterized nef genes in 10 long-term slow progressors (LTSP) infected with HIV-1 subtype B and 34 control patients. LTSP was defined whose the annual decrease in CD4 T cells was less than 20/μl over 10 years in the absence of antiretroviral therapy. They were treated with KRG for a prolonged period. Nef genes were amplified from peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) using nested PCR and products were sequenced directly. Patient CD4 T cell counts decreased from 444 ± 207/㎕ to 294 ± 177/㎕ over 136 ± 23 months of KRG intake. This corresponds to an annual decrease in the level of CD4 T cells of 13.3/㎕. A total of 479 nef genes were amplified from 137 PBMC samples. Nine out of the 10 patients, 47 (34.3%) out of the 137 samples, and 92 out of the 479 genes revealed g?nef. The deletion extended outside the nef gene in 25 g?nef obtained from 6 patients. The proportion of samples with g?nef (34.3%) was significantly higher than 4.8% in control patients (P ＜ 0.001). In addition, it significantly increased as the duration of KRG intake prolongs (P ＜ 0.01). These data suggest the possibility that occurrence of g?nef might be associated with long?term intake of KRG.

목차 (Table of Contents)

• Abstract
• INTRODUCTION
• Materials and methods
• RESULTS
• DISCUSSION
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS