Beschreibung:
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<jats:title>Objective:</jats:title>
<jats:p>The cervical mucus plugs are enriched with proteins of known immunological functions. We aimed to characterize the anti-HIV-1 activity of the cervical mucus plugs against a panel of different HIV-1 strains in the contexts of cell-free and cell-associated virus.</jats:p>
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<jats:title>Design:</jats:title>
<jats:p>A cohort of consenting HIV-1-negative and HIV-1-positive pregnant women in labour was recruited from Mthatha General Hospital in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa, from whom the cervical mucus plugs were collected in 6 M guanidinium chloride with protease inhibitors and transported to our laboratories at −80 °C.</jats:p>
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<jats:title>Methods:</jats:title>
<jats:p>Samples were centrifuged to remove insoluble material and dialysed before freeze--drying and subjecting them to the cell viability assays. The antiviral activities of the samples were studied using luminometric reporter assays and flow cytometry. Time-of-addition and BlaM-Vpr virus-cell fusion assays were used to pin-point the antiviral mechanisms of the cervical mucus plugs, before proteomic profiling using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry.</jats:p>
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<jats:title>Results:</jats:title>
<jats:p>The proteinaceous fraction of the cervical mucus plugs exhibited anti-HIV-1 activity with inter-individual variations and some degree of specificity among different HIV-1 strains. Cell-associated HIV-1 was less susceptible to inhibition by the potent samples whenever compared with the cell-free HIV-1. The samples with high antiviral potency exhibited a distinct proteomic profile when compared with the less potent samples.</jats:p>
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<jats:title>Conclusion:</jats:title>
<jats:p>The crude cervical mucus plugs exhibit anti-HIV-1 activity, which is defined by a specific proteomic profile.</jats:p>
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