부산대학교 도서관

HIV-2 infection will progress to AIDS in most patients without treatment, albeit at approximately half the rate of HIV-1 infection. HIV-2 capsid (p26) amino acid polymorphisms are associated with lower viral loads and enhanced processing of T cell epitopes, which may lead to protective Gag-specific T cell responses common in slower progressors. Lower virus evolutionary rates, and positive selection on conserved residues in HIV-2 env have been associated with slower progression to AIDS. In this study we analysed 369 heterochronous HIV-2 p26 sequences from 12 participants with a median age of 30 years at enrolment. CD4% change over time was used to stratify participants into relative faster and slower progressor groups. We analysed p26 sequence diversity evolution, measured site-specific selection pressures and evolutionary rates, and determined if these evolutionary parameters were associated with progression status. Faster progressors had lower CD4% and faster CD4% decline rates. Median pairwise sequence diversity was higher in faster progressors (5.7*[10.sup.-3] versus 1.4*[10.sup.-3] base substitutions per site, P Key words: HIV-2; evolution; capsid; p26
Introduction HIV-1 and HIV-2 are retroviruses that transmitted from non-human primates to humans in the 20th century. HIV-1 has four main groups, of which M accounts for 98 % of [...]