[Genetic characteristics of HIV-1 CRF01_AE strains in four provinces, southern China].
OBJECTIVE
To analyze the genetic characteristics of HIV-1 CRF01_AE strains prevailing in the four provinces of southern China.


METHODS
Plasma samples were collected from the newly diagnosed HIV-1 individuals reported in 2006 in Guangdong, Guangxi, Jiangxi and Hunan province. The gag and env gene fragments were amplified from RNA template extracted from plasma using RT and nested PCR methods. CRF01_AE sequences were analyzed by phylogenetic methods and characterized by calculating the genetic distance and Entropy analysis.


RESULTS
Two main epidemic clusters were found to exist in the CRF01_AE strains from 210 HIV-1 CRF01_ AE infected individuals collected in the 4 provinces, southern China. It was found that no international reference strain was closely correlated with cluster I, which including 123 samples. The strains in cluster II, consisting 57 cases of samples, were closely related with the strains identified in Vietnam. Genetic distance analysis of gag and env genes showed that the diversity of cluster I was obviously less than that of cluster II. Data on nucleotide polymorphism showed that nucleotides compositions of 42 sites in gag and 40 sites in env were significantly different between the two clusters. When compared with cluster II, the polymorphism decreased at 61 nucleotide sites but increased at 21 sites in cluster I.


CONCLUSIONS
This was the first report describing that two main epidemic clusters were existed in CRF01_AE strains prevailing in the 4 provinces, Southern China. The virus in cluster I was the dominant strain in this region, with shorter period of circulation and higher proportion seen in the HIV-infected population, which might belong to CRF01_AE strain with certain features facilitating the spread of the virus. The virus in cluster II was highly homology with the CRF01_AE strains from Vietnam, and seemed to have had several events of epidemics in populations in border regions of China and Vietnam.
Cheng
Chun-Lin
CL
National Center for AIDS/STD Control and Prevention, State Key Laboratory for Infectious Disease Prevention and Control, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing, China.
Feng
Yi
Y
He
Xiang
X
Lin
Peng
P
Liang
Shu-Jia
SJ
Yi
Zhi-Qiang
ZQ
He
Jian-Mei
JM
Hu
Yuan-Yuan
YY
Xing
Hui
H
Fan
Yan
Y
Wu
Shi-Liang
SL
Shao
Yi-Ming
YM
D002681:China; D004196:Disease Outbreaks; D015752:Genes, env / Q000235:genetics; D015750:Genes, gag / Q000235:genetics; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000821:virology*; D015497:HIV-1 / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics*; D006801:Humans; D010802:Phylogeny; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D020641:Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide