TY - JOUR
T1 - Direct evidence of extensive diversity of HIV-1 in Kinshasa by 1960
AU - Worobey, Michael
AU - Gemmel, Marlea
AU - Teuwen, Dirk E.
AU - Haselkorn, Tamara
AU - Kunstman, Kevin
AU - Bunce, Michael
AU - Muyembe, Jean Jacques
AU - Kabongo, Jean Marie M.
AU - Kalengayi, Raphaël M.
AU - Van Marck, Eric
AU - Gilbert, M. Thomas P.
AU - Wolinsky, Steven M.
N1 - Funding Information:
Acknowledgements We thank J. Wertheim and M. Sanderson for computational assistance, and L. Jewel for providing the Canadian control specimen. The NIH/ NIAID and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation funded the research.
PY - 2008/10/2
Y1 - 2008/10/2
N2 - Human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) sequences that pre-date the recognition of AIDS are critical to defining the time of origin and the timescale of virus evolution. A viral sequence from 1959 (ZR59) is the oldest known HIV-1 infection. Other historically documented sequences, important calibration points to convert evolutionary distance into time, are lacking, however; ZR59 is the only one sampled before 1976. Here we report the amplification and characterization of viral sequences from a Bouin's-fixed paraffin-embedded lymph node biopsy specimen obtained in 1960 from an adult female in Léopoldville, Belgian Congo (now Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)), and we use them to conduct the first comparative evolutionary genetic study of early pre-AIDS epidemic HIV-1 group M viruses. Phylogenetic analyses position this viral sequence (DRC60) closest to the ancestral node of subtype A (excluding A2). Relaxed molecular clock analyses incorporating DRC60 and ZR59 date the most recent common ancestor of the M group to near the beginning of the twentieth century. The sizeable genetic distance between DRC60 and ZR59 directly demonstrates that diversification of HIV-1 in west-central Africa occurred long before the recognized AIDS pandemic. The recovery of viral gene sequences from decades-old paraffin-embedded tissues opens the door to a detailed palaeovirological investigation of the evolutionary history of HIV-1 that is not accessible by other methods.
AB - Human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) sequences that pre-date the recognition of AIDS are critical to defining the time of origin and the timescale of virus evolution. A viral sequence from 1959 (ZR59) is the oldest known HIV-1 infection. Other historically documented sequences, important calibration points to convert evolutionary distance into time, are lacking, however; ZR59 is the only one sampled before 1976. Here we report the amplification and characterization of viral sequences from a Bouin's-fixed paraffin-embedded lymph node biopsy specimen obtained in 1960 from an adult female in Léopoldville, Belgian Congo (now Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)), and we use them to conduct the first comparative evolutionary genetic study of early pre-AIDS epidemic HIV-1 group M viruses. Phylogenetic analyses position this viral sequence (DRC60) closest to the ancestral node of subtype A (excluding A2). Relaxed molecular clock analyses incorporating DRC60 and ZR59 date the most recent common ancestor of the M group to near the beginning of the twentieth century. The sizeable genetic distance between DRC60 and ZR59 directly demonstrates that diversification of HIV-1 in west-central Africa occurred long before the recognized AIDS pandemic. The recovery of viral gene sequences from decades-old paraffin-embedded tissues opens the door to a detailed palaeovirological investigation of the evolutionary history of HIV-1 that is not accessible by other methods.
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U2 - 10.1038/nature07390
DO - 10.1038/nature07390
M3 - Article
C2 - 18833279
AN - SCOPUS:53349127137
SN - 0028-0836
VL - 455
SP - 661
EP - 664
JO - Nature
JF - Nature
IS - 7213
ER -