Direct evidence of extensive diversity of HIV-1 in Kinshasa by 1960.

ABSTRACT: Human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) sequences that pre-date the recognition of AIDS are critical to defining the time of origin and the timescale of virus evolution. A viral sequence from 1959 (ZR59) is the oldest known HIV-1 infection. Other historically documented sequences, important calibration points to convert evolutionary distance into time, are lacking, however; ZR59 is the only one sampled before 1976. Here we report the amplification and characterization of viral sequences from a Bouin's-fixed paraffin-embedded lymph node biopsy specimen obtained in 1960 from an adult female in Léopoldville, Belgian Congo (now Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)), and we use them to conduct the first comparative evolutionary genetic study of early pre-AIDS epidemic HIV-1 grou

SUBMITTER: Worobey M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3682493 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature