To exclude other diseases such as tuberculosis and malignant lymphoma and to further improve the diagnostic accuracy of BLEC, the detection of the HIV-1 p24 antigen by immunohistochemistry is a useful diagnostic method.
A novel tuberculosis DNA vaccine in an HIV-1 p24 protein backbone confers protection against Mycobacterium tuberculosis and simultaneously elicits robust humoral and cellular responses to HIV-1.
When aerogenically infected with M. tuberculosis, these mice displayed a progressive increase in pulmonary gag and env mRNA levels and of p24 antigen production by cultured splenocytes.
Spleen cells from HIV-1-Tg mice deficient in TLR2 (Tg/TLR2(-/-)) were found to be completely defective in p24 production induced in response to live M. tuberculosis or Mycobacterium avium as well as certain mycobacterial products.
Lung segments involved with pulmonary tuberculosis had significantly elevated HIV-1 branched DNA (bDNA) levels and p24 in BAL compared with lung segments uninvolved with tuberculosis or with BAL from patients with no lung disease.
We found a striking increase from 4- to 208-fold in p24 levels in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid from involved sites of Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection vs uninvolved sites in three HIV+ patients.