Change of positive selection pressure on HIV-1 envelope gene inferred by early and recent samples.

ABSTRACT: HIV-1 infection has been on the rise in Japan recently, and the main transmission route has changed from blood transmission in the 1980s to homo- and/or hetero-sexual transmission in the 2000s. The lack of early viral samples with clinical information made it difficult to investigate the possible virological changes over time. In this study, we sequenced 142 full-length env genes collected from 16 Japanese subjects infected with HIV-1 in the 1980s and in the 2000s. We examined the diversity change in sequences and potential adaptive evolution of the virus to the host population. We used a codon-based likelihood method under the branch-site and clade models to detect positive selection operating on the virus. The clade model was extended to account for different positive selection pressures

SUBMITTER: Yoshida I 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3079721 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature