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Title

 

 

 

 

Molecular Epigenetics, Chromatin, and NeuroAIDS/HIV: Translational Implications

 

Authors

Paul Shapshak1, *, Francesco Chiappelli2, Deborah Commins3, Elyse Singer4, Andrew J. Levine4, Charurut Somboonwit5, Alireza Minagar6 and Andras J. Pellionisz7

 

Affiliation

1Division of Infectious Diseases and International Medicine, Departments of Internal Medicine and of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine, University of South Florida Health, Tampa, FL 33606; 2Division of Oral Biology and Medicine, UCLA School of Dentistry, Los Angeles, CA 90095; 3Department of Pathology, University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine, Los Angeles, CA 90089; 4Department of Neurology and National Neurological AIDS Bank, UCLA School of Medicine, Westwood, CA 90025; 5Division of Infectious Diseases and International Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, University of South Florida, College of Medicine, Tampa, FL 33606; 6Department of Neurology, Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, 1501 Kings Highway, Shreveport, LA 71130; 7Helixometry, 935 Rosette Court, Sunnyvale, CA 94086;

 

Email

pshapshak@gmail.com; *Corresponding Author

 

Phone

813-844-8903

 

Fax

813-844-8013

 

Article Type

Current Trends

 

Date

received August 28, 2008; accepted September 13, 2008; published October 07, 2008

 

Abstract

We describe current research that applies epigenetics to a novel understanding of the immuno-neuropathogenesis of HIV-1 viral infection and NeuroAIDS. We propose the hypothesis that HIV-1 alters the structure-function relationship of chromatin, coding DNA and non-coding DNA, including RNA transcribed from these regions resulting in pathogenesis in AIDS, drug abuse, and NeuroAIDS. We discuss the general implications of molecular epigenetics with special emphasis on drug abuse, bar-codes, pyknons, and miRNAs for translational and clinical research. We discuss the application of the recent recursive algorithm of biology to this field and propose to synthesize the Genomic and Epigenomic views into a holistic approach of Holo-Genomics.

 

Keywords

epigenetics; hologenomics; coding and noncoding DNA; HIV-1; AIDS; NeuroAIDS; molecular medicine paradigm-shift; translation-clinic

 

Citation

Shapshak et al., Bioinformation 3(1): 53-57 (2008)

 

Edited by

P. Kangueane

 

ISSN

0973-2063

 

Publisher

Biomedical Informatics

License

 

This is an Open Access article which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. This is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.