AEGiS-14IAC: Unusual NEF genotype found in a HIV-1 infected child with low viral replication during the first year of life.

14th International AIDS Conference

Barcelona, Spain - July 7-12, 2002

Unusual NEF genotype found in a HIV-1 infected child with low viral replication during the first year of life.

Int Conf AIDS 2002 Jul 7-12; 14:(abstract no. A10041)

Cavalieri E, Costa LJ, Succi RC, Souza IE, Diaz RS, Machado DM
UNIFESP, Sao Paulo, Brazil

BACKGROUND: High level viral replication during the 1st year of life is the most frequent pattern described in HIV-1 infected children. This study describes a vertically HIV-1 infected child who presented a persistent low viral load (VL) up to 11 mo of age (median = 3500copies/ml). As shown previously, defective NEF patterns presenting large deletions have been found in long term non progressors.

METHODS: In an attempt to investigate this unusual VL pattern we have amplified nef gene from PBMC samples from both the child (3 different time points) and the mother by nested PCR. DNA sequencing and phylogenetic analyzes were performed.

RESULTS: Our results showed that both mother and child sequences grouped together in the phylogenetic tree and were closely related to sequences from other long term survivors. Indeed, amino acid (aa) alignments showed an unusual insertion of 12 aa at the beginning of NEF protein in both mother and child's samples (1st and 2nd time points), and the lack of this insertion at the last time point. End point PCR clones were generated from the 2nd time point sample and we were able to identify a mixed population of viruses with and without the insertion.

CONCLUSIONS: We hypothesize a relationship between this unusual and yet not described NEF pattern and the persistence of low level VL in this child.

Keywords: AEGIS, HIV-1, Genes, nef, Gene Products, nef, Virus Replication, Genotype, Polymerase Chain Reaction, Viral Load, Child, Human, virology, genetics

020707
A10041