Conservation of an intact vif gene of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 during maternal-fetal transmission.

ABSTRACT: The human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) vif gene is conserved among most lentiviruses, suggesting that vif is important for natural infection. To determine whether an intact vif gene is positively selected during mother-to-infant transmission, we analyzed vif sequences from five infected mother-infant pairs following perinatal transmission. The coding potential of the vif open reading frame directly derived from uncultured peripheral blood mononuclear cell DNA was maintained in most of the 78,912 bp sequenced. We found that 123 of the 137 clones analyzed showed an 89.8% frequency of intact vif open reading frames. There was a low degree of heterogeneity of vif genes within mothers, within infants, and between epidemiologically linked mother-infant pairs. The distances between vif s

SUBMITTER: Yedavalli VR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC124582 | biostudies-literature | 1998 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature