Maintenance and reappearance of extremely divergent intra-host HIV-1 variants.

ABSTRACT: Understanding genetic variation in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is clinically and immunologically important for patient treatment and vaccine development. We investigated the longitudinal intra-host genetic variation of HIV in over 3,000 individuals in the US National HIV Surveillance System with at least four reported HIV-1 polymerase (pol) sequences. In this population, we identified 149 putative instances of superinfection (i.e. an individual sequentially infected with genetically divergent, polyphyletic viruses). Unexpectedly, we discovered a group of 240 individuals with consecutively sampled viral strains that were >0.015 substitutions/site divergent, despite remaining monophyletic in the phylogeny. Viruses in some of these individuals had a maximum genetic divergence ap

SUBMITTER: Wertheim JO 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6279948 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature