Quantitating the multiplicity of infection with human immunodeficiency virus type 1 subtype C reveals a non-poisson distribution of transmitted variants.
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Date
2008
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
American Society for Microbiology.
Abstract
Identifying the specific genetic characteristics of successfully transmitted variants may prove central to the
development of effective vaccine and microbicide interventions. Although human immunodeficiency virus
transmission is associated with a population bottleneck, the extent to which different factors influence the
diversity of transmitted viruses is unclear. We estimate here the number of transmitted variants in 69
heterosexual men and women with primary subtype C infections. From 1,505 env sequences obtained using a
single genome amplification approach we show that 78% of infections involved single variant transmission and
22% involved multiple variant transmissions (median of 3). We found evidence for mutations selected for
cytotoxic-T-lymphocyte or antibody escape and a high prevalence of recombination in individuals infected with
multiple variants representing another potential escape pathway in these individuals. In a combined analysis
of 171 subtype B and C transmission events, we found that infection with more than one variant does not follow
a Poisson distribution, indicating that transmission of individual virions cannot be seen as independent events,
each occurring with low probability. While most transmissions resulted from a single infectious unit, multiple
variant transmissions represent a significant fraction of transmission events, suggesting that there may be
important mechanistic differences between these groups that are not yet understood.
Description
Keywords
Antiretroviral agents., HIV infections--Immunology., HIV infections--Transmission., AIDS (Disease)--Vaccination., AIDS (Disease)--Immunological aspects., AIDS vaccines.
Citation
Abrahams, M-R. et al. 2009. Quantitating the multiplicity of infection with human immunodeficiency virus type 1 subtype C reveals a non-poisson distribution of transmitted variants. Journal of Virology 83(8) pp. 3556-3567.