Evidence-based skin care in preterm infants.

Most guidelines on neonatal skin care emphasize issues pertaining to healthy, term infants. Few address the complex task of skin barrier maintenance in preterm, very preterm, and extremely preterm infants. Here, we provide an evidence-based review of the literature on skin care of preterm neonates.

Guillain-Barré Syndrome and Healthcare Needs during Zika Virus Transmission, Puerto Rico, 2016.

To assist with public health preparedness activities, we estimated the number of expected cases of Zika virus in Puerto Rico and associated healthcare needs. Estimated annual incidence is 3.2-5.

Primate lentivirus capsid sensitivity to TRIM5 proteins.

Mammalian cells express several factors that inhibit lentiviral infection and that have been under strong selective pressure. One of these factors, TRIM5, targets the capsid protein of incoming retrovirus particles and inhibits subsequent steps of the replication cycle. By substituting human immunodeficiency virus type 1 capsid, we were able to show that a set of divergent primate lentivirus capsids was generally not susceptible to restriction by TRIM5 proteins from higher primates.

Independent genesis of chimeric TRIM5-cyclophilin proteins in two primate species.

The host range of retroviruses is influenced by antiviral proteins such as TRIM5, a restriction factor that recognizes and inactivates incoming retroviral capsids. Remarkably, in Owl monkeys (omk), a cyclophilin A (CypA) cDNA has been transposed into the TRIM5 locus, resulting in the expression of a TRIM5-CypA fusion protein (TRIMCyp) that restricts retroviral infection based on the retroviral capsid-binding specificity of CypA. Here, we report that the seemingly improbable genesis of TRIMCyp has, in fact, occurred twice, and pigtailed macaques (pgt) express an independently generated TRIMCyp protein.

Antiretroviral activity and Vif sensitivity of rhesus macaque APOBEC3 proteins.

The inability of human immunodeficiency virus type 1(HIV-1) to replicate in rhesus macaque cells is in part due to the failure of HIV-1 Vif to counteract the restriction factor APOBEC3G. However, in this study we demonstrate that several rhesus macaque APOBEC3 (rhAPOBEC3) proteins are capable of inhibiting HIV-1 infectivity. There was considerable variation in the ability of a panel of Vif proteins to induce degradation of rhAPOBEC3 proteins, and mutations within HIV-1 Vif that render it capable of degrading rhAPOBEC3G did not confer activity against other antiviral rhAPOBEC3 proteins.

XRCC1 stimulates polynucleotide kinase by enhancing its damage discrimination and displacement from DNA repair intermediates.

Human polynucleotide kinase (hPNK) is required for processing and rejoining DNA strand break termini. The 5'-DNA kinase and 3'-phosphatase activities of hPNK can be stimulated by the "scaffold" protein XRCC1, but the mechanism remains to be fully elucidated. Using a variety of fluorescence techniques, we examined the interaction of hPNK with XRCC1 and substrates that model DNA single-strand breaks.

Plasma membrane is the site of productive HIV-1 particle assembly.

Recently proposed models that have gained wide acceptance posit that HIV-1 virion morphogenesis is initiated by targeting the major structural protein (Gag) to late endosomal membranes. Thereafter, late endosome-based secretory pathways are thought to deliver Gag or assembled virions to the plasma membrane (PM) and extracellular milieu. We present several findings that are inconsistent with this model.