Drug-associated DNA Damage in HIV-1 Patients taking HAART

Despite the reduction in mortality in HIV-1 positive patients due to the use of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART), adverse effects have been associated to long-term usage. Recently, several studies have demonstrated that HIV-1 infected patients are under chronic oxidative stress caused by an inflammatory response to the latent infection, or as an adverse effect of the antiretroviral therapy. The aim of this study was to evaluate the DNA damage in peripheral blood mononuclear cells of HIV-1 patients treated with HAART when compared to healthy donors. Frozen peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) obtained from HIV-1 positive subjects with undetectable viremia and under HAART were used for this study. An aliquot of the thawed cells was used for DNA isolation and the remaining cells were cultured for seven days. Single and double-strand DNA breaks were evaluated using an alkaline gel electrophoresis (single-strand gel electrophoresis) and the neutral comet assay, respectively. PBMCs from health...