title: High rate of recombination throughout the human immunodeficiency virus type 1 genome.
abstract: The diploid nature of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) indicates that recombination serves a central function in virus replication and evolution. Previously, while examining the nature of obligatory primer strand transfers during reverse transcription, a high rate of recombination was observed at the ends of the viral genome within the viral long terminal repeats, prompting the following question: does recombination occur at a high rate throughout the genome? To address this question, two vectors based upon different strains of HIV-1 were utilized. The vectors were comprised predominantly of autologous HIV-1 sequence and were approximately the same size as the parental genome. The proviral progeny of heterodimeric virions were analyzed after a single cycle of replication, and the sequence heterogeneity between the two strains allowed direct examination of recombination crossovers. The results obtained indicate that HIV-1 undergoes approximately two to three recombination events per genome per replication cycle. These results imply that both HIV-1 RNAs are typically utilized during reverse transcription and that recombination is an important aspect of HIV-1 replication.
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Piscataway, New Jersey 08854, USA.
authors.forename: A E
authors.initials: AE
authors.lastname: Jetzt
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.forename: G J
authors.initials: GJ
authors.lastname: Klarmann
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Ron
authors.forename: B D
authors.initials: BD
authors.lastname: Preston
authors.forename: J P
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Dougherty
mesh_terms: D002460:Cell Line; D004279:DNA, Viral / Q000032:analysis; D016679:Genome, Viral; D015497:HIV-1 / Q000235:genetics* / Q000502:physiology*; D006367:HeLa Cells; D020180:Heteroduplex Analysis; D006801:Humans; D010957:Plasmids; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D011533:Proviruses; D011995:Recombination, Genetic; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D014162:Transfection; D014779:Virus Replication
chemical_list: D004279:DNA, Viral