| Overview |
The Retrovirology Services Core
provides services to support studies of HIV persistence during
highly active antiretroviral therapy, studies of the effect
of small interfering (si) RNA molecules on viral replication,
studies of HIV infection by T lymphocytes, and studies of HIV
infection on neural tissues.
Retrovirology Core Services
- Cell culture - Availability of widely used cell lines including HeLa, HEK 293, H9, 3T3, TZM; CD4 enrichment/CD8 depletion of PBMC; Maintenance of contracts with RI Blood Bank for obtaining leukopaks and processing of leukopaks
- Virology-HIV - Viral quantification including p24 ELISA, LTR-luciferase and Real Time/conventional PCR for proviral DNA, spliced/unspliced RNA; Maintenance of commonly used laboratory adapted (e.g. NL4.3) and primary HIV-1 strains; Tittering of virus for cell culture; Genotypic resistance characterization in diverse anatomic compartments including blood plasma, cervicovaginal lavage, CSF, PBMC; Viral growth curves, fitness; Quantification of HIV-1 burden by co-culture (ongoing versus latent reservoirs).
- Nucleic acid/ protein quantification - Maintenance of equipment and provision of reagents/technical assistance for northern, western, southern blo.
- Cell biology - Creation and maintenance of generic plasmid or retroviral, lentiviral and adeno-associated viral vectors for creation of permanent cell lines; Technical assistance for cloning selected inserts into plasmid and viral vectors (-i.e. site directed mutagenesis, restriction enzyme digestion); Assistance with primer design for Real Time PCR applications.
- Specimen archiving - Isolating and archiving blood plasma, CSF, CVL, PBMC from ongoing clinical studies.
CFAR Core Services Evaluation
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