Reduced evolutionary rates in HIV-1 reveal extensive latency periods among replicating lineages.

ABSTRACT:

Background

HIV-1 can persist for the duration of a patient's life due in part to its ability to hide from the immune system, and from antiretroviral drugs, in long-lived latent reservoirs. Latent forms of HIV-1 may also be disproportionally involved in transmission. Thus, it is important to detect and quantify latency in the HIV-1 life cycle.

Results

We developed a novel molecular clock-based phylogenetic tool to investigate the prevalence of HIV-1 lineages that have experienced latency. The method removes alternative sources that may affect evolutionary rates, such as hypermutation, recombination, and selection, to reveal the contribution of generation-time effects caused by latency. Our method was able to recover latent lineages with high specificity and sensitivity, and l

SUBMITTER: Immonen TT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4201670 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature