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Journal of Virology, October 2000, p. 8946-8952, Vol. 74, No. 19
0022-538X/00/$04.00+0
Copyright © 2000, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
Effects of Genital Tract Inflammation on Human Immunodeficiency
Virus Type 1 V3 Populations in Blood and Semen
Li-Hua
Ping,1,2
Myron S.
Cohen,1,2
Irving
Hoffman,1,2
Pietro
Vernazza,3
Françoise
Seillier-Moiseiwitsch,1,4
Hrishikesh
Chakraborty,4
Peter
Kazembe,5
Dick
Zimba,5,
Martin
Maida,5
Susan A.
Fiscus,1,6
Joseph J.
Eron,1,2
Ronald
Swanstrom,1,7 and
Julie A. E.
Nelson1,*
UNC Center for AIDS
Research1 and Departments of
Medicine,2
Biostatistics,4 Microbiology and
Immunology,6 and Biochemistry and
Biophysics,7 University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599; Institute
for Clinical Microbiology and Immunology, Kantonsspital, St.
Gallen, Switzerland3; and Lilongwe
Central Hospital, Lilongwe, Malawi5
Received 12 January 2000/Accepted 8 July 2000
We have examined cell-free viral populations in the blood plasma
and seminal plasma compartments of men infected with subtype C human
immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) using the V3-specific heteroduplex tracking assay (V3-HTA). We studied two cohorts of subjects who had visited either a sexually transmitted disease (STD)
clinic for genital tract inflammation in the form of urethritis (n = 43) or a dermatology clinic (controls,
n = 14) in Malawi. We have previously shown that the
presence of urethritis is associated with an eightfold increase in
virus load in the seminal plasma compartment (M. S. Cohen et al.,
Lancet 349:1868-1873, 1997). The purpose of this study was to
determine whether genital tract inflammation and its treatment caused
genetic instability in cell-free HIV-1 populations. In a
cross-sectional analysis at study entry, three-fourths of the STD and
control subjects had multiple V3 populations in their blood while 60%
of the STD subjects and 79% of the control subjects had multiple V3
populations in their semen. Overall, one-fourth of all of the subjects
showed discordance between results with blood and semen specimens when
samples were compared for the presence and absence of subpopulations.
When differences in the relative levels of abundance of bands were also
taken into account, two-fifths of all of the subjects showed discordance between the compartments. Among the subset of subjects in
whom multiple virus populations could be detected, half showed discordance between the compartments. There were no differences between
STD and control cohorts for these comparisons of the compartments in
this cross-sectional analysis at study entry. Longitudinal analysis of
the viral populations from two separate clinic visits over 1 to 4 weeks
showed that the complexity of each V3 population as measured by Shannon
entropy was different in blood and semen at the two time points,
indicating that the blood and semen constitute different compartments
for HIV-1. The seminal plasma compartment was more dynamic than the
blood plasma compartment for the STD subjects who were treated for
urethritis, with changes being noted in the presence or absence of
V3-HTA bands in the semen of 29% of these subjects but in the blood of
only 9% of these subjects. However, the changes were generally small.
Overall, our results suggest that 40% of male subjects show
discordance between seminal and blood viral populations and that the
complexity of each V3 population was different between the two
compartments. Both of these results point to the partial independence
of the seminal compartment as a viral niche within the body.
*
Corresponding author. Mailing address: CB 7295, Room
22-062 Lineberger Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599. Phone: (919) 966-5757. Fax: (919) 966-8212. E-mail: jaen{at}med.unc.edu.

Deceased.
Journal of Virology, October 2000, p. 8946-8952, Vol. 74, No. 19
0022-538X/00/$04.00+0
Copyright © 2000, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
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