Infectious Molecular Clone of a Recently Transmitted Pediatric Human Immunodeficiency Virus Clade C Isolate from Africa: Evidence of Intraclade Recombination

Authors

Ricky D. Grisson, Harvard Medical School
Agnes-Laurence Chenine, Harvard Medical School
Lan-Yu Yeh, Harvard Medical School
Jun He, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Charles Wood, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
Ganapati J. Bhat, University Teaching Hospital, Lusaka, Zambia
Weidong Zu, Harvard Medical School
Chipepo Kankasa, University Teaching Hospital, Lusaka, Zambia
Ruth M. Ruprecht, Harvard Medical School

Document Type

Article

Date of this Version

12-2004

Comments

Published in JOURNAL OF VIROLOGY, Dec. 2004, p. 14066–14069 Vol. 78, No. 24 0022-538X/04/$08.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/JVI.78.24.14066–14069.2004 Copyright © 2004, American Society for Microbiology. Used by permission.

Abstract

Although human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) clade C continues to dominate the pandemic, only two infectious clade C proviral DNA clones have been described (N. Mochizuki, N. Otsuka, K. Matsuo, T. Shiino, A. Kojima, T. Kurata, K. Sakai, N. Yamamoto, S. Isomura, T. N. Dhole, Y. Takebe, M. Matsuda, and M. Tatsumi, AIDS Res. Hum. Retrovir. 15:1321–1324, 1999; T. Ndung’u, B. Renjifo, and M. Essex, J. Virol. 75:4964–4972, 2001). We have generated an infectious molecular clone of a pediatric clade C strain, HIV1084i, which was isolated from a Zambian infant infected either intrapartum or through breastfeeding. HIV1084i is an R5, non-syncytium-inducing isolate that bears all known clade C signatures; gag, pol, and env consistently mapped within clade C. Interestingly, gag resembled Asian isolates, whereas pol and env resembled African isolates, indicating that HIV1084i probably arose from an intraclade recombination. As a recently transmitted clade C strain, HIV1084i will be a useful vaccine development tool.