Relevance of the reactivity of HIV 1 positive sera with synthetic peptides for understanding antigenic differences between circulating strains.
Several problems have arisen concerning the detection methodology of sources and chains of HIV transmission based on molecular and antigenic relatedness of HIV isolates. Great progress in mapping virus genome or provirus, especially in identifying the changes in the env gene provides interesting data for molecular epidemiology. We address the same problem by the investigation of the reactivity of sera from HIV 1 seropositive children with two panels of synthetic peptides mimicking immunoreactive fragment of HIV1 glycoproteins in solid phase EIA. The samples proceed from two distinct settings: an orphanage in which nosocomial transmission was highly suspected and from different hospitals caring for HIV infected children. The synthetic peptides have sequences which reproduce two target regions: one in the principal neutralization domain of gp 120 (V3 loop) and the other at the COOH end of gp 41. Our results indicate that minimal differences in aminoacids flanking central conserved GPGRA region in V3 loop of gp 120 evidence strain specific antibodies while the COOH end of gp 41 reveals antibodies which link HIV 1 strains in a broad fashion. Sera from HIV infected children collected in different settings recognize the same synthetic peptides panel with distinct frequencies suggesting circulation of different antigenic strains.
Cernescu
C
C
Stefan S. Nicolau, Institute of Virology, Bucharest, Romania.
Ruţă
S M
SM
D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000940:Antigenic Variation / Q000276:immunology*; D001667:Binding, Competitive; D016009:Chi-Square Distribution; D002648:Child; D004797:Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay / Q000379:methods; D015483:HIV Antibodies / Q000097:blood*; D015488:HIV Antigens / Q000276:immunology*; D006679:HIV Seropositivity / Q000276:immunology*; D015528:HIV Seroprevalence; D015497:HIV-1 / Q000276:immunology*; D015498:HIV-2 / Q000276:immunology*; D006801:Humans; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010455:Peptides / Q000276:immunology*; D012383:Romania / Q000453:epidemiology
D015483:HIV Antibodies; D015488:HIV Antigens; D010455:Peptides