High proportion of unrelated HIV-1 intersubtype recombinants in the Mbeya region of southwest Tanzania.
BACKGROUND
In Mbeya, a rural region of southwest Tanzania, HIV-1 subtypes A, C and D have been co-circulating since the early 1990s.


OBJECTIVE
To define to what extent the co-existence of subtypes has led to recombinant HIV-1 strains and whether there is evidence for epidemic spread of any circulating recombinant form.


METHODS
Nine HIV-1-seropositive young adults from Mbeya Town with no evident high-risk behaviour contributed peripheral blood mononuclear cells for this study. Nine virtually full-length-genome-sequences were amplified from this DNA and phylogenetically analysed.


RESULTS
Out of the nine samples, two were subtype A (22%), two were subtype C (22%) and five were recombinants (56%): four A/C recombinants and one C/D recombinant. None of the recombinants were related to each other; all of them had different mosaic structures. Most of the genome in the recombinants was subtype C.


CONCLUSIONS
A high proportion of unrelated intersubtype recombinants, none of them apparently spreading in the population, may be present in southwest Tanzania.
Hoelscher
M
M
Department of Infectious Diseases and Tropical Medicine, Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich, Germany.
Kim
B
B
Maboko
L
L
Mhalu
F
F
von Sonnenburg
F
F
Birx
D L
DL
McCutchan
F E
FE
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D016679:Genome, Viral; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000821:virology*; D015497:HIV-1 / Q000145:classification* / Q000235:genetics*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010802:Phylogeny; D011995:Recombination, Genetic; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D013636:Tanzania