Isolation of AIDS-related viruses from African Primates

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1.Since the discovery of HIV-1 and HIV-2 as causative agents of AIDS,efforts have been directed towards understanding the origins and evolutionary history of HIV.HIV-1 and HIV-2 are closely related to primate lentiviruses (SIV). In this project, we have studied the diversity of related nonhuman primate lentiviruses and speculated on the origins of HIV in Africa. In this 3 years, we concentrated to clarify the molecular epidemiology of HIV in Cameroon and to assess the incidence of mixed-infection and recombination.2.Forty eight HIV (47 HIV-1, one HIV-2) were obtained from Cameroonian AC,ARC and AIDS patients in 1994 and 1995. Part of the pol region suitable for comparing all the groups of HIV-related lentiviruses and part of the HIV-1 env region including the V3 loop were amplified by nested PCR,sequenced, and phylogenetically analyzed.3.The majority of Cameroonian HIV-1s belonged to clade A (32), but the rest belonged to various clades : clade B (2), clade C (2), Clade D (2), clade E (1), Clade F (4) and group O (4). In the pol analysis, two different types were found in four individuals (HIV-2a and HIV-1 clade A,HIV-1 group O and clade A,clades A and C,and clades C and F), suggesting double infections with different HIV-1 subtypes or groups.4.Various mixed-infection such as between different clades of HIV-1 group M,between HIV-1 and HIV-2, and even between HIV-1 groups O and M were confirmed at a rather high frequency (around 10%) in the analyzed specimens. Some of the data suggested recombination between different clades of HIV-1 group M were also obtained. Thus phylogenetic analysis based on the pol and env regions provided a new insight to the understanding of HIV phylogeny.