Viral Diversity and Diversification of Major Non-Structural Genes vif, vpr, vpu, tat exon 1 and rev exon 1 during Primary HIV-1 Subtype C Infection

To assess the level of intra-patient diversity and evolution of HIV-1C non-structural genes in primary infection, viral quasispecies obtained by single genome amplification (SGA) at multiple sampling timepoints up to 500 days post-seroconversion (p/s) were analyzed. The mean intra-patient diversity was 0.11% (95% CI; 0.02 to 0.20) for vif, 0.23% (95% CI; 0.08 to 0.38) for vpr, 0.35% (95% CI; −0.05 to 0.75) for vpu, 0.18% (95% CI; 0.01 to 0.35) for tat exon 1 and 0.30% (95% CI; 0.02 to 0.58) for rev exon 1 during the time period 0 to 90 days p/s. The intra-patient diversity increased gradually in all non-structural genes over the first year of HIV-1 infection, which was evident from the vif mean intra-patient diversity of 0.46% (95% CI; 0.28 to 0.64), vpr 0.44% (95% CI; 0.24 to 0.64), vpu 0.84% (95% CI; 0.55 to 1.13), tat exon 1 0.35% (95% CI; 0.14 to 0.56 ) and rev exon 1 0.42% (95% CI; 0.18 to 0.66) during the time period of 181 to 500 days p/s. There was a statistically significant increase in viral diversity for vif (p = 0.013) and vpu (p = 0.002). No associations between levels of viral diversity within the non-structural genes and HIV-1 RNA load during primary infection were found. The study details the dynamics of the non-structural viral genes during the early stages of HIV-1C infection

HIV-1 subtype C phylogenetic relationship and diversity of HIV non-structural genes is consistent with the multiplicity of HIV-1 infection determined by analysis of the <i>env</i>/<i>gag</i> genes.

<p>A maximum likelihood phylogenetic tree was reconstructed using Fastree2 (Price <i>et al</i>., 2010) using the GTR+G model for nucleotide substitution and visualized in Figtree v.1.1.3 <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0035491#pone.0035491-Rambaut1" target="_blank">[54]</a>. Alternative likelihood ratio tests <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0035491#pone.0035491-Anisimova1" target="_blank">[55]</a> >0.95 are shown by an asterisk. Subjects infected with multiple viral variants are colored red. Patient B and D subtrees (individual trees on grey background) show branching topology of earliest sampling (0–90 days p/s) and represent examples of single (subject B) and multiple (subject D) HIV-1 transmission.</p

HIV-1C diversity, mean and 95% confidence intervals for non-structural genes <i>vif</i>, <i>vpr</i>, <i>vpu</i>, <i>tat</i> exon 1 and <i>rev</i> exon 1 over the first 500 days p/s.

<p>Viral diversity for each subject was calculated using maximum composite likelihood model <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0035491#pone.0035491-Tamura2" target="_blank">[56]</a>.</p

HIV-1 subtyping by analysis of phylogenetic relationships of HIV-1 non-structural genes.

<p>The analyzed region of HIV-1 genome corresponded to nucleotide positions 5,041 to 6,310 in HXB2. Three sequences were randomly selected for each study subject (see <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0035491#s2" target="_blank">Methods</a>). A phylogenetic tree was inferred by Mr. Bayes using GTR model. The convergence was reached after 10 M MCMC run. The consensus tree was visualized in Figtree v.1.3.1 <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0035491#pone.0035491-Rambaut1" target="_blank">[54]</a>. Clade credibility values of >0.95 shown by asterisk, Subtype D cluster showed the support of 0.93 indicated by + symbol. HIV-1 subtype C reference sequences are shown as blue circles. All non-subtype C group M reference sequences are shown at the bottom of the phylogenetic tree. SIV sequence (CPZ.CM98.CAM3.AF115393) was used as an outgroup.</p

Individual distribution of pairwise distances for each of the non-stuctural genes,<i>vif</i> (HXB2 start 5041 to 5619), <i>vpr</i> (HXB2 start 5559 to 5850), <i>vpu</i> (HXB2 start 6062 to 6310), <i>tat</i> exon 1 (HXB2 start 5831 to 6045), and <i>rev</i> exon 1(HXB2 start 5970 to 6045).

<p>Individual distribution of pairwise distances for each of the non-stuctural genes,<i>vif</i> (HXB2 start 5041 to 5619), <i>vpr</i> (HXB2 start 5559 to 5850), <i>vpu</i> (HXB2 start 6062 to 6310), <i>tat</i> exon 1 (HXB2 start 5831 to 6045), and <i>rev</i> exon 1(HXB2 start 5970 to 6045).</p