Evidence of Subclinical mtDNA Alterations in HIV-Infected Pregnant Women Receiving Combination Antiretroviral Therapy Compared to HIV-Negative Pregnant Women
Bibliographic record
Abstract
INTRODUCTION: Combination antiretroviral therapy (cART) can effectively prevent vertical transmission of HIV but there is potential risk of adverse maternal, foetal or infant effects. Specifically, the effect of cART use during pregnancy on mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) content in HIV-positive (HIV+) women is unclear. We sought to characterize subclinical alterations in peripheral blood mtDNA levels in cART-treated HIV+ women during pregnancy and the postpartum period. METHODS: This prospective longitudinal observational cohort study enrolled both HIV+ and HIV-negative (HIV-) pregnant women. Clinical data and blood samples were collected at three time points in pregnancy (13-<23 weeks, 23-<30 weeks, 30-40 weeks), and at delivery and six weeks post-partum in HIV+ women. Peripheral blood mtDNA to nuclear DNA (nDNA) ratio was measured by qPCR. RESULTS: Over a four year period, 63 HIV+ and 42 HIV- women were enrolled. HIV+ women showed significantly lower mtDNA/nDNA ratios compared to HIV- women during pregnancy (p = 0.003), after controlling for platelet count and repeated measurements using a multivariable mixed-effects model. Ethnicity, gestational age (GA) and substance use were also significantly associated with mtDNA/nDNA ratio (p≤0.02). Among HIV+ women, higher CD4 nadir was associated with higher mtDNA/nDNA ratios (p<0.0001), and these ratio were significantly lower during pregnancy compared to the postpartum period (p<0.0001). CONCLUSIONS: In the context of this study, it was not possible to distinguish between mtDNA effects related to HIV infection versus cART therapy. Nevertheless, while mtDNA levels were relatively stable over time in both groups during pregnancy, they were significantly lower in HIV+ women compared to HIV- women. Although no immediate clinical impact was observed on maternal or infant health, lower maternal mtDNA levels may exert long-term effects on women and children and remain a concern. Improved knowledge of such subclinical alterations is another step toward optimizing the safety and efficacy of cART regimens during pregnancy.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".