J Virol, April 1998, p. 3418-3422, Vol. 72, No. 4
0022-538X/98/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1998, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
Departamento de Microbiologia,
Received 3 March 1997/Accepted 12 January 1998
To demonstrate that human immunodeficiency virus type 2 (HIV-2)
mother-to-child transmission exists, HIV-2 isolates were obtained from
both an asymptomatic mother (HIV-2 strain ARM), and her child (HIV-2
strain SAR), who had a diagnosis of AIDS. To determine their biological
phenotype, primary isolates were used to infect various primary
mononuclear cells and cell lines. HIV-2 ARM replicates in primary cells
and Jurkat-tat, while HIV-2 SAR infects these cells plus SupT1, which led us to classify HIV-2 ARM as a slow/low virus and HIV-2 SAR as having an intermediate (slow/low-3) phenotype. Molecular analysis of the env region corresponding to
gp125 was performed. Viral DNA was cloned, sequenced, and used to
construct phylogenetic trees. The DNA sequence analysis demonstrated an overall nucleotide diversity of 7.6%. The results present evidence that the child's strain is more virulent than the mother's strain, which is in agreement with the immunodeficiency of the child. The
phylogenetic trees that were constructed demonstrate that the two
isolates cluster together, being closer to each other than to any other
isolate described until now.
Heterosexual transmission is
responsible for the majority of infections with human immunodeficiency
virus (HIV), leading to the probability of perinatally acquired HIV
infection (25). Although vertical transmission of HIV type 1 (HIV-1) is well documented (33), studies of HIV-2 vertical
transmission have been much more limited, probably because of the later
recognition of this second type of virus (7) and its more
limited geographic distribution, mainly in West Africa (14).
In Europe, reported cases of HIV-2 infection are rare, Portugal having
the highest incidence, 5.7% of all HIV infections (19).
First studies conducted in West Africa suggested that mother-to-child
transmission of HIV-2 could be absent (3, 26). However,
there is virological evidence suggesting that HIV-2 perinatal
transmission may occur (8). Cross-sectional serological and
clinical surveys have also demonstrated that pediatric HIV-2 infection
seems to be extremely rare (11, 20). Recent epidemiological
studies have confirmed that although HIV-2 vertical transmission
exists, it is uncommon compared to that of HIV-1 (1, 8).
A HIV-2 vertical transmission study, in which a total of 47 children
born to HIV-2-seropositive mothers are enrolled, has been conducted at
Lisbon's pediatric hospital. Here we report for the first time the
isolation and characterization, on the biological and molecular levels,
of two HIV-2 strains isolated from a mother-to-child transmission pair
enrolled in this study in which perinatal transmission occurred.
The mother (infected with HIV-2 strain ARM), a 35-year-old female
from Guinea-Bissau resident in Portugal since 1988, was probably
infected by heterosexual contact, for there is no history of blood
transfusion or drug addiction. She was diagnosed with HIV-2 infection
during the second trimester of pregnancy and remained asymptomatic
throughout gestation. The female child (infected with HIV-2 strain
SAR), was born on 10/22/1992 in a Maternity Hospital in Lisbon by
vaginal delivery and was bottle fed. At birth, neurological examination
of the child was normal and there were no malformations. At 50 days of
life, failure to thrive and increasing irritability were noted. Before
3 months of age, AIDS category C2 (6) was diagnosed
when the child had Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia and
serious HIV encephalopathy. The total lymphocyte count was
2,930/mm3, the CD4 count was 860/mm3 (29%),
and the CD8 count was 470/mm3 (16%). Zidovudine
therapy was started at 3 months of age.
Patients were tested by HIV-1 and HIV-2 enzyme-linked immunosorbent
assays with confirmation by Western blot and synthetic peptide assays
(ELAVIA I/II, NEW LAV-BLOT I/II, and Pepti LAV 1-2, all from
Diagnostics Pasteur). Mother and infant sera reacted strongly in the
enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay for HIV-2 and showed a complete
reactivity profile for HIV-2 proteins on a Western blot. The Pepti LAV
1-2 analysis confirmed the HIV-2 seroreactivities (data not
shown).
The fact that the mother described in our study is asymptomatic is
interesting, for in other reports describing HIV-2 perinatal transmission, except in one epidemiological study (11), the majority of the mothers are symptomatic. To our knowledge, this is also
the first case showing that neurological disease can be associated with
an HIV-2-infected infant with a very early onset of symptoms. Other
reports of HIV-2-related symptoms in pediatric populations have
involved much older children, aged 20 months or more (17,
20).
Correlation of viral phenotype with clinical status and
transmission.
Peripheral blood was collected from both
subjects on the 27th day after delivery. Follow-up child samples were
also obtained at ages of 5, 8, and 12 months. Peripheral blood
mononuclear cells (PBMC) were cocultured with
phytohemagglutinin-stimulated PBMC from healthy blood donors and
monitored by reverse transcriptase (RT) activity (13) and
syncytium formation assays every 3 to 4 days. Peak RT activity was
reached very rapidly, i.e., day 4 of culture for HIV-2 SAR and day 6 for HIV-2 ARM, with values of 35,000 and 15,000 cpm/ml, respectively;
no visible cytopathic effects were seen. Virus isolation was achieved
for all samples obtained from the infant, which fulfills the criteria
of HIV diagnosis in children born to HIV-seropositive mothers
(6).
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TABLE 1.
Cellular host range of HIV-2 strains ARM
and SARa
Molecular analysis of HIV-2 env gene fragments derived from the mother-infant pair. To characterize HIV-2 strains ARM and SAR at the genetic level, a nested PCR technique was used to amplify a region of approximately 1,150 bp situated in the env gene region encoding the carboxy-terminal part of V1 up to and including the C5 region of gp125. The first round of amplification was performed with previously described primers A1 and NT5 (30). The nested primers were PAT2 (CTGT TGGAATTCAACCCAAGAACCCTAGCAC) and PAT1 (CCATGCGCGTCGACAGACAAACTGCTCAGGA) (positions 6579 to 6610 and 7719 to 7689, respectively in HIV-2 ROD), containing EcoRI and SalI restriction sites (underlined nucleotides). These fragments were cloned into M13 mp18/mp19 vectors and sequenced by using the gene-walking method.
Figure 1 gives alignments of the nucleotide and translation products for HIV-2 strains ARM and SAR with prototype HIV-2 strain ROD. The percentage of nucleotide diversity between ARM and SAR over the sequenced region was 7.6%. This translates into 89% sequence homology at the amino acid level, which is 2.4 to 2.9% higher than that for the most closely related HIV-2 CBL23 glycoprotein and at least 11% higher than that for the HIV-2B and simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) sequences in the database (22). In common with other HIV-2 isolates, the glycoproteins of HIV-2 ARM and SAR show alternating variable and constant domains organized around a conserved core of 16 cysteine residues over the region analyzed (22). Both sequences contain 19 potential N-linked glycosylation sites, 16 of which are conserved in position and 2 of which are shifted by one or two amino acids, and ARM contains one at residue 31 while SAR has one at residue 107 (Fig. 1). Notably, both viruses lack the glycosylation site (marked in Fig. 1) at the start of the CD4-binding domain, which is conserved in all other HIV-2A isolates reported to date (22). The absence of this glycosylation site is unusual and may be of some importance, as its removal has been associated with a decrease in the CD4-binding capacity of gp125 (21).
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Nucleotide sequence accession numbers. The nucleotide sequences corresponding to the partial envelope sequences of HIV-2 strains ARM and SAR have been submitted to the GenBank database and assigned accession no. AJ001162 and AJ001163, respectively.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS |
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Patricia Cavaco-Silva is on a grant from Junta Nacional de Investigação Científica e Tecnológica. This work was supported in part by Comissão Nacional de Luta contra a SIDA (Portuguese Ministry of Health).
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FOOTNOTES |
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* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Departamento de Microbiologia, Faculdade de Farmácia de Lisboa, Av. das Forças Armadas, 1600 Lisboa, Portugal. Phone: 351-1-7946442. Fax: 351-1-7934212. E-mail: mhlourenco{at}ff.ul.pt.
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