Characterization of near full-length genomes of HIV type 1 strains in Denmark: basis for a universal therapeutic vaccine |
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Authors: | Andresen Betina S Vinner Lasse Tang Sheila Bragstad Karoline Kronborg Gitte Gerstoft Jan Corbet Sylvie Fomsgaard Anders |
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Affiliation: | Department of Virology, Statens Serum Institut, Copenhagen, Denmark. |
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Abstract: | We report here the near full-length sequence characterization of 17 Danish clinical HIV-1 strains isolated from HLA-A02 patients not in need of ART, with relatively low viral loads and normal CD4 cell counts. Sequencing was performed directly on DNA extracted from short-term cocultures of PBMCs. The near full-length genomes did not contain any major insertions, deletions, or rearrangements. Sixteen of the isolates were characterized as nonrecombinant subtype B and one isolate as nonrecombinant subtype C. Phylogenetic analysis did not reveal any founder effect among the sequences. Also, we investigated the presence of infrequently targeted subdominant HLA-A02-binding CTL epitopes. The epitopes were conserved in the Danish strains as well as globally in reference sequences of all subtypes. Thus, the selected epitopes were not subtype-specific or region-specific. This lends support for the concept of a universal immunotherapeutic vaccine construct based on these epitopes. |
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