Founder virus population related to route of virus transmission: a determinant of intrahost human immunodeficiency virus type 1 evolution?

V V Lukashov, J Goudsmit
1997 Journal of Virology  
Founder virus population related to route of virus transmission: a determinant of intrahost human immunodeficiency virus type 1 evolution ? Lukashov, V.V.; Goudsmit, J. Published in: Journal of Virology Link to publication Citation for published version (APA): Lukashov, V. V., & Goudsmit, J. (1997). Founder virus population related to route of virus transmission: a determinant of intrahost human immunodeficiency virus type 1 We and others have shown that in individual human immunodeficiency
more » ... s type 1 (HIV-1) infection, the adaptive evolution of HIV-1 is influenced by host immune competence. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that in addition to selective forces operating within the host, transmission bottlenecks have an impact on HIV-1 intrahost evolution. Therefore, we studied the intrahost evolution of the V3 region of the external glycoprotein gp120 of HIV-1 during the 3-and 5-year periods following seroconversion after parenteral versus sexual (male-to-male) transmission in 41 participants of the Amsterdam prospective cohorts of homosexual men (n ‫؍‬ 31) and intravenous drug users (IVDUs; n ‫؍‬ 10) who were AIDS free and had comparable numbers of CD4 ؉ cells. We observed that HIV-1 strains in homosexual men accumulated over 5 years more nonsynonymous substitutions within the V3 loop than HIV-1 strains in IVDUs as a result of lower rates of nonsynonymous evolution in both the initial 3-year period from seroconversion and the following 2-year period as well as a larger proportion of nonsynonymous back substitutions in IVDUs. The mean numbers of synonymous substitutions did not differ between the two risk groups. Since HIV-1 strains in IVDUs could be distinguished from the viruses of homosexual men based on several nucleotide substitutions of which the most conserved is a synonymous substitution at the tip of the V3 loop (GGC pattern) , we studied whether the founder virus population itself has an impact on the intrahost evolution of HIV-1. The mean number of nonsynonymous substitutions accumulated over 5 years within the V3 loop was lower in 10 IVDUs infected by the HIV-1 strains with the GGC signature than in 4 IVDUs infected by HIV-1 strains lacking this pattern, while the mean numbers of synonymous substitutions were similar in the two groups.
doi:10.1128/jvi.71.3.2023-2030.1997 fatcat:idicrg7uanf4zhl6oou72aj6bm