Characterization of nef sequences in long-term survivors of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 infection.
Studies with the simian immunodeficiency virus have shown that nef deletion results in a low level of viremia and a lack of disease progression in monkeys. Given the similarity of this clinical profile to that observed in long-term survivors of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) infection, we sought to examine the nef gene in 10 patients who are clinically healthy and immunologically normal despite 12 to 15 years of infection. PCR and DNA sequencing were used to determine nef sequences in peripheral blood mononuclear cells obtained from long-term survivors. We found that there is no gross deletion within nef in the cases studied; most nef sequences (91.1%) obtained from 10 subjects contained a full-length and intact open reading frame. In addition, at the protein level, there were no discernible differences between the Nef consensus sequences derived from long-term survivors and those from patients with AIDS. We therefore conclude that deletion of or gross sequence abnormality within nef is not likely to be a common explanation for the well-being of long-term survivors of HIV-1 infection. Moreover, phylogenetic analysis of nef sequences suggests that HIV-1 strains found in our study subjects do not have a common origin.
Huang
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Y
Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center, New York University School of Medicine, New York 10016.
Zhang
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L
Ho
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D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D001483:Base Sequence; D016384:Consensus Sequence; D017931:DNA Primers; D015754:Genes, nef; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000821:virology*; D015497:HIV-1 / Q000235:genetics*; D006801:Humans; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010802:Phylogeny; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D011110:Polymorphism, Genetic; D017386:Sequence Homology, Amino Acid; D017741:Survivors
D017931:DNA Primers