title: Correlation between SIV Tat evolution and AIDS progression in cerebrospinal fluid of morphine-dependent and control macaques infected with SIV and SHIV.
abstract: Morphine abuse has been associated with higher virus replication and accelerated disease progression in a non-human primate model of AIDS. In our previous report, we have shown that 50% of morphine-addicted macaques progress rapidly and that 2/3 of the rapid progressors exhibit severe neuropathogenesis. In this report, we examined the sequence evolution of the SIV Tat protein, known to participate in AIDS neuropathology, in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of morphine-dependent and control macaques over the first 20 weeks of infection. The CSF SIV Tat evolution was found to be inversely related with disease progression, and the highly neuropathogenic inoculum clone sequence was the prevalent CSF form in rapid progressors. Divergence from the inoculum clone was significantly greater in both morphine-dependent normal progressors and control macaques than in the morphine-dependent rapid progressors. Furthermore, we also found evidence of a trend that morphine alters the type of mutation, resulting in an enhanced ratio of transitions to transversions (Ts:Tv). Rapid disease exacerbates this trend and appears to influence the distribution of nonsynonymous changes in the first exon of SIV tat, with a clear majority of mutations occurring in the C-terminal half of the protein where the known functionally important domains reside. Thus, morphine abuse may change the nature and extent of mutations that drive viral evolution.
authors.affiliation: AIDS Research Program, Ponce School of Medicine, Ponce, PR 00732, USA; Department of Biochemistry, Ponce School of Medicine, Ponce, PR 00732. rnoel@psm.edu
authors.forename: Richard J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Noel
authors.forename: Ziomara
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Marrero-Otero
authors.forename: Rakesh
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kumar
authors.forename: Gladys S
authors.initials: GS
authors.lastname: Chompre-González
authors.forename: Ashish S
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: Verma
authors.forename: Anil
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kumar
mesh_terms: D000163:Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome / Q000150:complications* / Q000821:virology; D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D018791:CD4 Lymphocyte Count; D002555:Cerebrospinal Fluid / Q000821:virology*; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D018450:Disease Progression; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D015756:Genes, tat; D006678:HIV / Q000235:genetics; D008253:Macaca mulatta; D008297:Male; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009021:Morphine Dependence / Q000150:complications*; D020125:Mutation, Missense; D010802:Phylogeny; D017354:Point Mutation; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D016097:Simian Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome / Q000134:cerebrospinal fluid / Q000150:complications / Q000821:virology*; D015302:Simian Immunodeficiency Virus / Q000235:genetics*; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D019562:Viral Load