Estimating the timing of mother-to-child transmission of the human immunodeficiency virus type 1 using a viral molecular evolution model.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) is responsible for most pediatric HIV-1 infections worldwide. It can occur during pregnancy, labor, or breastfeeding. Numerous studies have used coalescent and molecular clock methods to understand the epidemic history of HIV-1, but the timing of vertical transmission has not been studied using these methods. Taking advantage of the constant accumulation of HIV genetic variation over time and using longitudinally sampled viral sequences, we used a coalescent approach to investigate the timing of MTCT.

Materials and methods

Six-hundred and twenty-two clonal env sequences from the RNA and DNA viral population were longitudinally sampled from nine HIV-1 infected mother-and-child pairs [range: 277-1034 days]. For each transmission p

SUBMITTER: Chaillon A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3981669 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature