AEGiS-12IAC: Escape recombinants of HIV-1 in a dual-infected transfusion recipient.

12th International AIDS Conference

Geneva, Switzerland - June 28-July 3, 1998

Escape recombinants of HIV-1 in a dual-infected transfusion recipient.

Int Conf AIDS 1998 Jun 28-Jul 3; 12:19 (abstract no. 11183)

Diaz RS, Zanotto P, Mayer AJ, Busch MP, Holmes E
Federal University of Sao Paulo, Brazil.

BACKGROUND: Two distinct viral populations from unrelated blood donors (D1 and D2) were transfused into a single infant (DR) and shown to undergo dual infection as we previously described. Red cells from the 2 infected donors also each singly infected two other infant recipients (R1, R2). Here, we continue the analysis of this epidemiological cluster in order to address the issue of strain competition in the context of selective correlates of recombination, in order to better understand the nature of the processes at play.

METHODS: cDNA from plasma were end-point diluted and amplified for the tat and env V3-5 regions of HIV-1 by nested PCR, and sequenced. Sequences from the 5 members of the cluster were phylogeneticaly analyzed.

RESULTS: In V3, sequence motifs from both populations were exchanged with equal frequency, causing an intricate mosaic pattern, yet in V4-V5 all but one of the DR sequences came from donor D1. dn:dS analysis shows that this bias can be explained by D1 motifs in V4-V5 being fixed on escape recombinants-viruses which have a selective advantage due to their inability to elicit host selective (immune) pressure tat region sequences in DR showed D1 and D2-complexes without bias.

CONCLUSIONS: We conclude that recombination and natural selection acting together can greatly expand the adaptive potential of HIV-1.

Keywords: AEGIS, HIV-1, Recombination, Genetic, Polymerase Chain Reaction, Human, Infant, genetics, ICA12
980628
11183