Vyal’tseva Y. The intensity of apoptosis in children with HIV/Aids.

This thesis is devoted to the study of the leading mechanism of HIV-induced immunosuppression – apoptosis of blood cells in HIV-positive children. Quantitative and qualitative shifts in the markers of cell immunity are found in all HIV-positive children. It was determined that among the mechanisms of apoptosis affecting HIV-positive children, receptor-mediated apoptosis is the main one, but sometimes it can be accompanied with mitocondria-mediated. Having established that bacterial, fungal super-infections in HIV-positive children cause a remarkable in-crease in apoptosis, while viral infections increase apoptosis of the cells in the acute stage of the illness, but decrease in the latent stage. Based upon apoptosis mechanism of lymphocytes the effectiveness of treatment by two combinations of HAART were compared and proven equal in effectiveness. Noticing changes of Fas-receptor registered under resistance to ARV medications suggested the possibility of using Fas-receptor as an additional laboratorymarker of resistance to ARV medications in HIV-positve children.