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Journal of Virology, November 2004, p. 11758-11765, Vol. 78, No. 21
0022-538X/04/$08.00+0     DOI: 10.1128/JVI.78.21.11758-11765.2004
Copyright © 2004, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Between-Host Evolution of Cytotoxic T-Lymphocyte Epitopes in Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1: an Approach Based on Phylogenetically Independent Comparisons

Helen Piontkivska and Austin L. Hughes^*

Department of Biological Sciences, University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina

Received 19 February 2004/ Accepted 4 June 2004

In human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1), mutations that escape from cytotoxic T-lymphocyte (CTL) recognition have been documented, and sequence analyses have provided indirect support for the hypothesis that natural selection has favored CTL escape mutants within an infected host. In spite of such evidence for within-host selection by CTL, it has been more difficult to determine how natural selection by host CTL has influenced long-term evolution of HIV-1. We used statistical analysis of published HIV-1 genomic sequences to examine the role of natural selection in between-host evolution of CTL epitopes. Based on a phylogenetic analysis, we identified 21 pairs of closely related genomes isolated from different hosts and examined the pattern of nucleotide substitution in genomic regions encoding well-characterized CTL epitopes. The results revealed that certain CTL epitopes have been subject to repeated positive selection across the population, while others are generally conserved. Furthermore, evidence of positive selection was associated with divergence from the canonical epitope sequence and with an enhanced frequency of convergent amino acid sequence changes in CTL epitopes. The results support the hypothesis that CTL-driven selection has been a major factor in the long-term evolution of HIV-1.

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* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of Biological Sciences, University of South Carolina, Coker Life Sciences Bldg., 700 Sumter St., Columbia, SC 29208. Phone: (803) 777-9186. Fax: (803) 777-4002. E-mail: austin{at}biol.sc.edu.

Supplemental material for this article may be found at http://jvi.asm.org/.

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Journal of Virology, November 2004, p. 11758-11765, Vol. 78, No. 21
0022-538X/04/$08.00+0     DOI: 10.1128/JVI.78.21.11758-11765.2004
Copyright © 2004, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

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