Molecular characterization of the HIV type 1 vpr gene in infected Chinese former blood/plasma donors at different stages of diseases.
The HIV-1 vpr regions were PCR amplified and sequenced from eight long-term nonprogressors' (LTNP) and seven AIDS patients' DNA samples of a cohort of HIV-1-infected Chinese plasma/blood donors (PBDs). Sequence analysis revealed that the patients' HIV-1 vpr sequences belong to HIV-1 subtype B and there were no differences in the divergence of vpr sequences between these two groups of patients. Similarly, in the deduced amino acid sequences, no significant differences have been detected in vpr functional domains from patients at different stages of the disease. Moreover, the predicted binding motifs of HLA A2 and A11 were highly conserved among patients' vpr amino acid sequences. These results show that vpr may not play an important role in HIV-1 pathogenesis in different stages of Chinese patients and may have important implications in developing vpr-related treatments suitable for HIV-1-infected PBDs.
Shen
Chengli
C
Department of Infectious Diseases and Microbiology, Graduate School of Public Health, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15261, USA.
Gupta
Phalguni
P
Wu
Hao
H
Chen
Xinyue
X
Huang
Xiaojie
X
Zhou
Yusen
Y
Chen
Yue
Y
D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D001782:Blood Donors; D002681:China; D016334:Genes, vpr / Q000235:genetics*; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000821:virology*; D020276:HIV Long-Term Survivors; D015497:HIV-1 / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D015234:HLA-A Antigens / Q000378:metabolism; D059870:HLA-A11 Antigen; D015789:HLA-A2 Antigen / Q000378:metabolism; D006801:Humans; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D016415:Sequence Alignment
D015234:HLA-A Antigens; D059870:HLA-A11 Antigen; D015789:HLA-A2 Antigen