J. Virol., Jun 1996, 3331-3338, Vol 70, No. 6
FE McCutchan, AW Artenstein, E Sanders-Buell, MO Salminen, JK Carr, JR Mascola, XF Yu, KE Nelson, C Khamboonruang, D Schmitt, MP Kieny, JG McNeil and DS Burke
Human immunodeficiency virus type 1 isolates of clade E, known to be
largely responsible for the fulminating epidemic in Southeast Asia, have
been derived exclusively from Asia and Africa. Here we provide full or
partial sequences of the envelope glycoprotein gene from 13 additional
clade E isolates from Asia representing patients in both early and late
stages of disease. More extensive comparison of isolates within clade E by
geographic locale, stage of disease, and year of isolation is now possible.
The genetic diversity of clade E isolates from Asia, particularly among
those derived from early-stage patients, is restricted compared with
African isolates (mean interisolate distances in gp120, 5.4 and 20.2%,
respectively). However, patients hospitalized with AIDS-related illnesses
in Thailand harbored clade E isolates exhibiting broader interisolate
diversity and with highly heterogeneous third hypervariable loop sequences.
An additional pair of cysteine residues, predicting a novel disulfide
bridge and present in 80% of clade E isolates from Asia, was uniformly
absent from six African isolates. Clade E isolates in Thailand from
early-stage subjects continue to be genetically similar to potential
vaccine prototype strains, providing a favorable environment for the
evaluation of genotype E candidate vaccines. However, evidence of
increasing interisolate diversity is appearing among late-stage patients in
Asia. This diversification of the clade E virus, if sustained, may impact
preventive vaccine development strategies.
Copyright © 1996, American Society for Microbiology
Diversity of the envelope glycoprotein among human immunodeficiency virus type 1 isolates of clade E from Asia and Africa
Henry M. Jackson Foundation, Rockville, Maryland 20850, USA.
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