A team of scientists from India
and America have figured out why HIV-1C
subtype is more prevalent than other subtypes of the virus.
The human
immunodeficiency virus consists of two types HIV 1 and 2 and each one of
them has many subtypes. Of them, HIV-1C alone causes half of all the HIV
infections globally and nearly all in India.
Researchers have found that HIV-1C can
efficiently duplicate an important region of its genome to replicate faster
unlike other subtypes. HIV-1C
duplicates a region of its Gag protein called PTAP domain to make two copies of
this domain.
The study was conducted in a group of
HIV positive persons in India. It was found that viral strains of HIV-1C
containing two PTAP domains could dominate viral strains containing only one
PTAP domain in the blood of eight persons during follow up.
“This
molecular trick may have given HIV-1C a big
replication advantage over others. Given the dynamic nature of viral
evolution, this trick may be transmitted to other slow-witted cousins
through ‘viral recombination’ and may make this new molecular trick a universal
problem,” explained Dr. Udaykumar Ranga, a scientist at Jawaharlal Nehru Centre
for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR), Bangalore, who led the study.
Dr. Shahid Jameel, a virologist and CEO
of Wellcome Trust DBT India Alliance, who was not associated with this study,
pointed out that “HIV shows
high degree of sequence variation, making it both an interesting virus to study
and a difficult one to control through
vaccines and drugs.”
Dr. Akhil C. Banerjea, Emeritus
Professor at the National Institute of Immunology commented that “the
researchers have found a new motif in HIV that may
explain why subtype C can multiply at a faster rate. This study will also allow
targeting this motif to control viral replication.”
The research team included Shilpee
Sharma, P.S. Arunachalam, Malini Menon, J. Jebaraj, Shambhu G., Chaitra Rao,
Sreshtha Pal and Udaykumar Ranga (JNCASR); V. Ragupathy, I. Hewlett (Center for
Biologics Evaluation and Research, USA); Ravi Vijaya Satya (GRAIL Inc, USA); S.
Saravanan, K. G Murugavel, P. Balakrishnan and (late) S. Solomon (Y.R. Gaitonde
Centre for AIDS Research and Education, Chennai).
This work was supported by Department
of Science and Technology (DST). The researchers have published their findings
in the Journal of Biological Chemistry.
Journal Reference: PTAP motif duplication in the p6 Gag
protein confers a replication advantage on HIV-1 subtype C
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