HIV Type 1 Diversity in France, 1999–2001: Molecular Characterization of non-B HIV Type 1 Subtypes and Potential Impact on Susceptibility to Antiretroviral Drugs

Abstract

Non-B HIV-1 samples collected in France between 1999 and 2001 were sequenced in the env, reverse transcriptase (RT), and protease genes (1) to characterize further the non-B strains circulating in the country, (2) to assess the importance of recombination, and (3) to describe the polymorphism of RT and protease genes and appreciate a possible impact on susceptibility to antiretroviral (ARV) drugs. The results show that, within a background of CRF02_AG predominance, there is a high genetic diversity of non-B isolates, including intersubtype recombinants. There is an extensive polymorphism of protease and RT genes compared with B consensus sequences; we have so far no data indicating that these non-B isolates may have reduced sensitivity to ARV drugs.

Impact of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 (HIV-1) Genetic Diversity on Performance of Four Commercial Viral Load Assays: LCx HIV RNA Quantitative, AMPLICOR HIV-1 MONITOR v1.5, VERSANT HIV-1 RNA 3.0, and NucliSens HIV-1 QT

“…This warrants additional study given the widening geographical distribution of this recombinant form. It currently represents the most common source of non-B infections in France and has been detected in the United States and Europe (18,34).…”

“…Several studies have documented the clinical impact on non-B infections in the United States (25,48,49). In many European countries, 20 to 30% of new infections are due to non-Bsubtype and recombinant strains (4,5,17,18).…”

Pressure from TRIM5α Contributes to Control of HIV-1 Replication by Individuals Expressing Protective HLA-B Alleles

“…Most patients were infected with subtype B viruses (n ϭ 33), but CRF02_AG (n ϭ 17), A1 (n ϭ 3), CRF01_AE (n ϭ 2), and D (n ϭ 1) subtypes were also identified (59,60). The CA sequence of the two CRFs is derived from subtype A viruses, and therefore we compared the sensitivity to hTRIM5␣ of viruses carrying subtype A-and subtype B-derived CA sequences.…”

Impact of frequent natural polymorphisms at the protease gene on the in vitro susceptibility to protease inhibitors in HIV-1 non-B subtypes

“…Tracking different HIV-1 subtypes and CRFs is of crucial importance for understanding trends in the AIDS pandemic. In North America and West Europe, HIV-1 subtype B is the most prevalent clade, although a rapid spreading of other variants has been highlighted in recent years (Alaeus et al, 1997a(Alaeus et al, , 1997bBarlow et al, 2001;Böni et al, 1999;Fleury et al, 2003;Holguín et al, 2000aHolguín et al, , 2000bHolguín et al, , 2002aHolguín et al, , 2002bOp de Coul et al, 2001). The diversity of HIV-1 may affect diagnostic tests (Apetrei et al, 1996;Baldrich-Rubio et al, 2001;Candotti et al, 2000), including those used for viral load measurements (Alaeus et al, 1997a(Alaeus et al, , 1997bHolguín et al, 1999;Jenny-Avital and Beatrice, 2001).…”