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Diversity of envelope glycoprotein from human immunodeficiency
virus type 1 of recent seroconverters in Thailand.
AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses 2000;16(8):801-805.
McCutchan FE, Viputtigul K, de Souza MS, Carr JK, Markowitz LE, Buapunth
P, McNeil JG, Robb ML, Nitayaphan S, Birx DL, Brown AE.
Abstract
The envelope-coding sequence of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1)
was determined for 11 Thai seroconverters between 1995 and 1996. On the basis
of the env sequences, all subjects were infected with HIV subtype E. Compared
with the interpatient protein diversity among HIV-1 Thai reference sequences
from 1990 to 1992 (4.4%), the diversity among the 1995-1996 seroconverters
was approximately double (9.5%). The tetrapeptide tip of the V3 loop was
invariant for 10 of the 11 seroconverters, and identical to that observed
in sequences derived from the 1990-1992 group. However, in the V3 region,
sequences from 2 of the 11 subjects demonstrated more than 5 amino acid changes
relative to the reference strains. This may represent the "aging" of
the HIV epidemic seen in other endemic regions. These findings may have substantial
implications for vaccine development and evaluation for both HIV antibody
and cytotoxic T lymphocyte repertoire recognition.