title: Lack of differences in HIV-1 nef functional domains in infected chinese blood donors at different stages of disease.
abstract: HIV-1 nef regions were amplified by polymerase chain reaction and sequenced from DNA samples of five asymptomatic subjects and five AIDS patients from a cohort of HIV-1-infected Chinese plasma and blood donors. Sequence analysis revealed that regardless of the stage of disease, each patient's HIV-1 nef sequences belonged to the clade B' subtype. Although there are some differences between the sequences from different patients, no significant differences have been detected in nef nucleotide sequences or functional motifs in the deduced amino acid sequences from patients at different stages of the disease. Furthermore, the predicted binding motifs of HLA-A2 and HLA-A11 were highly conserved among patient nef sequences. These results will contribute to a better understanding of the pathogenesis of circulating HIV-1 in infected Chinese former blood donors and may have important implications in developing an epitope-based vaccine suitable for Chinese blood donors.
authors.affiliation: Department of Infectious Diseases and Microbiology, Graduate School of Public Health, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15261, USA. cheny@pitt.edu
authors.forename: Yue
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Lori
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Caruso
authors.forename: Chengli
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Shen
authors.forename: Hao
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.forename: Yushen
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.forename: Phalguni
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Gupta
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D001782:Blood Donors; D002681:China; D018450:Disease Progression; D015693:Gene Products, nef / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D015754:Genes, nef / Q000235:genetics*; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000821:virology; D015497:HIV-1 / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism / Q000472:pathogenicity*; D006801:Humans; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010802:Phylogeny; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA
chemical_list: D015693:Gene Products, nef