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J. Virol., 03 1997, 2059-2071, Vol 71, No. 3
JK Wong, CC Ignacio, F Torriani, D Havlir, NJ Fitch and DD Richman
High rates of mutation and replication of human immunodeficiency virus
(HIV) allow for the continuous generation of diverse genetic variants in
vivo. Selective pressures within the microenvironments of different
anatomic compartments result in the emergence of dominant quasispecies
which can be distinguished by their envelope sequences. It is not known
whether comparable tissue-specific selective pressures lead to the
independent evolution of pol sequences within different tissue
compartments, nor is it known how differing rates of virus turnover in
tissues might affect the pace of such evolution. These issues are of
importance for the formulation of a model for the emergence of drug
resistance in vivo and for a general understanding of virus trafficking and
virus turnover. Regions of the HIV type 1 reverse transcriptase (RT) which
carry the majority of the known resistance codons to RT inhibitors (700
nucleotides from each clone) were cloned and sequenced directly from
autopsied brain, spleen, and lymph node specimens from four subjects who
had received zidovudine therapy. Clones from proviral DNA (143) and from
viral cDNA (14) were analyzed. In three of four subjects, a discordance in
distribution of resistance codons was noted. Moreover, brain-derived
sequences appeared to be phylogenetically distinct from spleen- and lymph
node-derived sequences even after exclusion of resistance codons from
analysis. In each case, evidence for differential immune selective
pressure, based on comparison of inferred amino acid sequences
corresponding to known major histocompatibility complex class I cytotoxic
T-lymphocyte epitopes, was found. These observations support the concept of
anatomically distinct, independently evolving quasispecies (virodemes).
Copyright © 1997, American Society for Microbiology
In vivo compartmentalization of human immunodeficiency virus: evidence from the examination of pol sequences from autopsy tissues
Department of Medicine, University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine, La Jolla 92093-0679, USA. j2wong@ucsd.edu
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