Gao F, Yue L, Shaw GM, Hahn BH; National Conference on Human Retroviruses and Related Infections.

Program Abstr Second Natl Conf Hum Retrovir Relat Infect Natl Conf Hum Retrovir Relat Infect 2nd 1995 Wash DC. 1995 Jan 29-Feb 2; 99.

University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL.

Recent studies of HIV-1 intra-patient diversity indicate that individuals are initially infected with a single virus, which then evolves into a complex quasi-species over time. To characterize intra-patient diversity in HIV-2, we PCR amplified and cloned a 453 bp env fragment from uncultured PBMC DNA of five individuals with different manifestations of HIV-2 disease. Sequence analysis of 10-37 clones per amplification product revealed a broad range of intra-strain variability, with no apparent relationship to disease status: One healthy individual known to be infected for several years exhibited an average of 0.1% diversity (range 0-0.4%), while another exhibited 6.0% diversity (range 0-11.5%). One patient with end-stage AIDS exhibited 1.6% diversity (0-2.7%), while two others exhibited 4.6% and 5.7% diversity (0.2-11.7%). Viral sequences derived from the same person all formed monophyletic clusters in evolutionary trees. These results show that HIV-2, like HIV-1, exist in vivo as a quasi-species comprised of closely related yet distinguishable viral strains. Moreover, like for HIV-1, each patient appears to have been infected, by only a single strain of virus. The broad spectrum of quasi-species complexity in individuals with widely varying disease manifestation warrants further study. It is possible that certain HIV-2 strains replicate more slowly and thus accumulate less mutations over time.

Publication Types:

• Meeting Abstracts

Keywords:

• Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome
• Base Sequence
• Genes, env
• HIV Infections
• HIV-1
• HIV-2
• Humans
• Polymerase Chain Reaction
• genetics
• reverse transcriptase, Human immunodeficiency virus 1

Other ID:

• 95920275

UI: 102213226

From Meeting Abstracts