The laboratory of Retrovirology performs fundamental and applied research in the field of chronic viral infections (HIV, HBV, HCV). The activities of the laboratory focus on two research domains, which interact closely: immuno-virology and clinical virology.
CLINICAL VIROLOGY RESEARCH UNIT
The HIV-1 envelope glycoprotein complex (Env) is involved in many crucial steps of the viral cycle. Our projects REC-LRTV-20081203 and REC-LRTV-20100604 aim at characterizing subtype-related specificities that are involved in transmission (by dendritic cells (DCs) and monocyte-derived-macrophages (MDMs)), viral entry, assembly and budding in different target cells (CD4+ T lymphocyte subsets, MDMs).
Promising Direct Acting Antivirals (DAA) targeting the non structural HCV proteins will be approved for clinical practice in the coming years but they present new resistance issues. The main objectives of our projects are to define the significance of natural polymorphisms and resistance-associated variants in the sensitivity of DAA (project AFR/20100906) and to develop intergenotypic chimeras cell culture models using the JFH1 backbone (project AFR/20110402).
Subtype A is responsible for 80% of HIV infections in Rwanda. The objectives of project REC-LRTV-20071004 are to describe resistance drug mutation patterns in naïve-treatment and treated patients from Rwanda and to evaluate the functional role of several subtype A resistance mutations in phenotypic assays using a newly developed recombinant virus assay with an appropriate backbone A. Project REC-LRTV-20090203 aims to identify new SNPs within the CYP450 genes in the Rwandese population and to correlate new haplotypes with plasma antiretroviral concentrations and treatment response. The Laboratory of Retrovirology is working with the site of Kigali in Rwanda within the MONOD project (Dr Valériane Leroy, INSERM Unit 897, ISPED Bordeaux), a phase 2b clinical trial, to evaluate a simplified once daily antiretroviral therapy in infants. In the context of project RWA-023 of Lux-development , our laboratory supports the National Reference Laboratory of Rwanda to implement HIV-1 genotyping for drug resistance surveillance in the country.