Human immunodeficiency virus type 1 env evolves toward ancestral states upon transmission to a new host.

ABSTRACT: Selecting human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) sequences for inclusion within vaccines has been a difficult problem, as circulating HIV strains evolve relentlessly and become increasingly divergent over time. We report an assessment of this divergence from three perspectives: (i) across different hosts as a function of time of infection, (ii) between donors and recipients in known transmission pairs, and (iii) within individual hosts over time in relation to the initially replicating virus and to the deduced ancestral sequence of the intrahost viral population. Surprisingly, we consistently found less divergence between viruses from different individuals sampled in primary infection than in individuals sampled at more advanced stages of illness. Furthermore, longitudinal analysis of intrahos

SUBMITTER: Herbeck JT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1367147 | biostudies-literature | 2006 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature