Isolation and analyzes of HIV・HTLV related viruses from humans and monkeys in Africa

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HIV and HTLV,the causative human retroviruses of AIDS and adult T-cell leukemia respectively, and their simian counterpart viruses comprise the primate retrovirus group. The goal of the present study is to clarify the whole strucure of this viral group by molecular epidemiological surveys of the respective viruses together with analyzes on their origin, evolution and dissemination. We have been directing our reseach attention to the central part of Africa from where numerous viruses heve originated. During 1996 to 1998, we conducted the serosurveys in Cameroon and Congo and subsequently carried out phylogenetic analyzes of the positive specimens. The results obtained were :1) In central Africa, there were a variety of HIV-1 subtypes (A to J) plus group O,the subtype A being the predominant, and the frequency of mixed-infections was very high (10%).2) The prevalences of HIV-1 subtypes G and H in Congo were 21% (6 out of 28 specimens examined) respectively and these values were next to subtype A (11/28,39%).3) The central genomic regions of two subtype Gisolates, one of which was previously isolated from Ghana and another was from Congo, were sequenced and the both virsuses were commonly found to be A/G recombinants though the genomic mosaicism was different between them, suggesting the possibility of at least two incidences of the viral appearance in terms of time and place.4) A Cameroonian AIDS patient (female, 25 y) was found to be a case of triple infection and the viral genomes are comprised of at least 4 different mosaic patterns of HIV-1 group O and subtypes A and D.HTLV-1 was isolated from Bantus and Pygmys and their sequences were compared with those from other areas in the world.