Publications

OBJECTIVE

Male-to-female transgender women (transwomen) have a disproportionate burden of HIV. We sought to estimate HIV treatment cascade indicators among transwomen in San Francisco.

METHODS

We conducted a respondent driven sampling (RDS) study of 314 transwomen from August to December 2010. The study tested participants for HIV and collected self-reported data on linkage and access to care, viral load and antiretroviral treatment (ART). We derived population-based estimates and 95% CIs of cascade indicators using sampling weights based on established RDS methods. We conducted RDS-weighted logistic regression analyses to evaluate correlates of being on ART and being virologically suppressed (viral load ≤ 200 copies/mL).

RESULTS

The RDS-weighted population-based estimate of HIV prevalence was 39% (95% CI 32% to 48%) among transwomen tested for HIV. Among HIV-positive transwomen, 77% (95% CI 70% to 93%) reported being linked to care within 3 months of diagnosis and 87% (95% CI 76% to 98%) accessed care in the past 6 months. In addition, 65% (95% CI 54% to 75%) were on ART, and less than half (44%; 95% CI 21% to 58%) were virologically suppressed. Housing instability was associated with lower odds of being on ART and being virologically suppressed.

CONCLUSIONS

We observed a high prevalence of HIV in our population-based estimates of transwomen in San Francisco, coupled with modest ART use and low virological suppression rates, indicating high potential for forward transmission. Poor HIV treatment outcomes were consistently associated with housing instability. These data suggest that multi-level efforts, including efforts to address housing insecurity, are urgently needed to ameliorate disparities in HIV clinical outcomes among transwomen and reduce secondary HIV transmission to their partners.

Semen harbors amyloids that enhance human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) infection. We set out to identify factors that bind these amyloids and to determine whether these factors modulate amyloid-mediated HIV-enhancing activity. Using biochemical and mass spectrometric approaches, we identified fibronectin as a consistent interaction partner. Although monomeric fibronectin did not enhance HIV infection, it synergistically increased the infectivity enhancement activity of the amyloids. Depletion of fibronectin decreased the enhancing activity of semen, suggesting that interfering with the binding interface between fibronectin and the amyloids could be an approach to developing a novel class of microbicides targeting the viral-enhancing activity of semen.

Central nervous system tuberculosis (CNS TB) represents one of the most devastating manifestations of TB. HIV dramatically increases the risk of TB disease, including CNS TB. Early recognition and treatment of CNS TB, and TB meningitis in particular, is of critical importance to reducing disability and death associated with CNS TB. The diagnosis and treatment of HIV-associated CNS TB presents particular challenges for clinicians due to the increased risk of other CNS infections and malignancies, atypical cerebrospinal fluid characteristics, drug-drug interactions, timing of antiretroviral therapy and immune reconstitution inflammatory syndrome, and the increased risk of poor clinical outcomes in HIV-infected compared with HIV-uninfected CNS TB patients. The authors review recent updates and highlight challenges specific to CNS TB in the HIV-infected patient.

Expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) mapping is a tool that can systematically identify genetic variation affecting gene expression. eQTL mapping studies have shown that certain genomic locations, referred to as regulatory hotspots, may affect the expression levels of many genes. Recently, studies have shown that various confounding factors may induce spurious regulatory hotspots. Here, we introduce a novel statistical method that effectively eliminates spurious hotspots while retaining genuine hotspots. Applied to simulated and real datasets, we validate that our method achieves greater sensitivity while retaining low false discovery rates compared to previous methods.