The genetic bottleneck in vertical transmission of subtype C HIV-1 is not driven by selection of especially neutralization-resistant virus from the maternal viral population.

ABSTRACT: Subtype C human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1C) continues to cause the majority of new cases of mother-to-child transmission (MTCT), and yet there are limited data on HIV-1C transmission. We amplified env from plasma RNA for 19 HIV-1C MTCT pairs, 10 transmitting in utero (IU) and 9 transmitting intrapartum (IP). There was a strong genetic bottleneck between all mother-infant pairs, with a majority of transmission events involving the transmission of a single virus. env genes of viruses transmitted to infants IP, but not IU, encoded Env proteins that were shorter and had fewer putative N-linked glycosylation sites in the V1-V5 region than matched maternal sequences. Viruses pseudotyped with env clones representative of each maternal and infant population were tested for neutralizatio

SUBMITTER: Russell ES 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3147968 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature