In Vivo HIV-1 Hypermutation and Viral Loads Among Antiretroviral-Naive Brazilian Patients

Author(s)

de Lima-Stein, Mariana Leao ; Alkmim, Wagner Tadeu ; de Souza Bizinoto, Maria Clara ; Lopez, Luis Fernandez ; Burattini, Marcelo Nascimento ; Maricato, Juliana Terzi ; Giron, Leila ; Araripe Sucupira, Maria Cecilia ; Diaz, Ricardo Sobhie ; Janini, Luiz Mario

• Document type: Journal article
• Source: AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses; v. 30, n. 9, p. 14-pg., 2014-09-01.

Abstract

Hypermutation alludes to an excessive number of specific guanine-to-adenine (G- > A) substitutions in proviral DNA and this phenomenon is attributed to the catalytic activity of cellular APOBECs. Population studies relating hypermutation and the progression of infection by human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) have been performed to elucidate the effect of hypermutation on the natural course of HIV-1 infection. However, the many different approaches employed to assess hypermutation in nucleotide sequences render the comparison of results difficult. This study selected 157 treatment-naive patients and sought to correlate the hypermutation level of the proviral sequences in clinical samples with demographic variables, HIV-1 RNA viral load, and the level of CD4(+) T cells. Nested touchdown polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was performed with specific primers to detect hypermutation in the region of HIV-1 integrase, and the amplified sequences were run in agarose gels with HA-Yellow. The analysis of gel migration patterns using the k-means clustering method was validated by its agreement with the results obtained with the software Hypermut. Hypermutation was found in 31.2% of the investigated samples, and a correlation was observed between higher hypermutation levels and higher viral load levels. These findings suggest a high frequency of hypermutation detection in a Brazilian cohort, which can reflect a particular characteristic of this population, but also can result from the method approach by aiming at hypermutation-sensitive sites. Furthermore, we found that hypermutation events are pervasive during HIV-1 infection as a consequence of high viral replication, reflecting its role during disease progression. (AU)