Introduction of HIV type 1 subtype E virus into South Korea.
Subtype E HIV-1 is the most prevalent strain in Southeast Asia. Although subtype B is prevalent in Korea, geographical distance and increases in travel may lead to the spread of subtype E in Korea. Therefore, we tried to identify and monitor the patterns of HIV subtype E virus introduction into Korea. The divergence of nucleotide sequences within the envelope region (V3 to V5) of Korean subtype E isolates ranged from 4.3 to 14.6% (n = 8; mean, 9.5 +/- 2.8%). In pairwise comparisons of subtype E isolates between Korea and other regions, the divergence of nucleotide sequences between 8 Korean and 16 Asian subtype E variants ranged from 1.3 to 15.2% (mean, 7.8 +/- 2.6%), whereas the divergence of nucleotide sequences between 8 Korean and 2 African variants ranged from 11.7 to 20.7% (mean, 15.4 +/- 2.2%). A phylogenetic tree showed that Korean subtype E isolates cluster with the Asian isolates but far from the African isolates. These epidemiological and molecular epidemiological data suggest that HIV-1 subtype E strains have been transmitted into Korea from endemic areas of Southeast Asia rather from Africa.
Center for AIDS Research, National Institute of Health, Seoul, Korea. aidshiv@nuri.net
J S
JS
Lee
J G
JG
Nam
E Y
EY
Kim
C
C
Kang
B K
BK
Koo
H W
HW
Cho
D000328:Adult; D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D005260:Female; D015686:Gene Products, env / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics; D015752:Genes, env; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000821:virology; D015497:HIV-1 / Q000145:classification* / Q000235:genetics; D006801:Humans; D007723:Korea / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010802:Phylogeny; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA
D015686:Gene Products, env