Molecular and Cell Biology of Opportunistic Infections in AIDS (Molecular and Cell Biology of Human Diseases Series)

Human immunodeficiency virus and AIDS have received much attention in the last decade. As the major cause of death in young adults, this concern is merited. AIDS has also ushered onto the clinical agenda a number of unusual and interesting pathogens. These have had considerably less attention than the virus itself, but are arguably as important. This book attempts to put into one volume a state of the art review of the basic biology of these opportunistic organisms. When compiling this book, the perceived difficulty was deciding how to restrict the number of chapters, as there is a large number of opportunistic organisms. It soon became clear, however, that the chapters would select themselves, as the work on many of these organisms was still in its infancy. We can be criticized for including Salmonella, which is not thought to be an opportunistic infection, and excluding Cryptococcus. Our defence is that the former has an interesting relationship with HIV and the latter is one of those organisms for which the basic biology is still in its early stages. The authors are all active researchers in their respective fields and we are grateful that they managed to review their subjects in the short turn-around time required for a book such as this not to be needlessly outdated on publication. We hope that, if nothing else, this book stimulates interest and more research on these agents: perhaps, in future editions, there will be much more to describe on their molecular biology. Front Matter....Pages i-xvi A clinical overview of opportunistic infections in patients with AIDS....Pages 1-22 The application of molecular biology to the diagnosis of infectious disease....Pages 23-40 Salmonella, Shigella and Campylobacter ....Pages 41-69 Mycobacteria....Pages 71-93 Entamoeba histolytica....Pages 95-137 Cryptosporidium and Isospora ....Pages 139-161 Toxoplasma....Pages 163-185 Pneumocystis carinii....Pages 187-203 Candida....Pages 205-228 Mycoplasmas and AIDS....Pages 229-256 Herpesviruses....Pages 257-277 Future prospects....Pages 279-280 Back Matter....Pages 281-283 This is the first text to review the molecular aspects of infectious organisms in AIDS patients. The structure of infecting viruses, bacteria and fungi is outlined; molecular mechanisms of pathogenesis reviewed and the use of gene detection methods discussed