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A clustering phenomenon among HCV‐1a strains among patients coinfected with HIV from Buenos Aires, Argentina
Author(s) -
Bolcic Federico,
Laufer Natalia,
Trinchero Juan,
Jones Leandro R.,
Quarleri Jorge
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
journal of medical virology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.782
H-Index - 121
eISSN - 1096-9071
pISSN - 0146-6615
DOI - 10.1002/jmv.23243
Subject(s) - virology , biology , phylogenetic tree , coalescent theory , hepatitis c virus , most recent common ancestor , monophyly , coinfection , flaviviridae , hepacivirus , ns5a , phylogenetics , genetics , virus , gene , clade
The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) share the same transmission routes which lead to high coinfection rates. Among HIV‐infected individuals such rates reached 21% in Argentina, being HCV‐1a the most predominant subtype. In this work, 25 HCV subtype 1a (HCV‐1a) strains from Argentinean patients coinfected with HIV were studied based on E2 and NS5A sequences. Phylogenetic analyses indicated that 12 strains were highly related to each other, constituting a highly supported (posterior probability = 0.95) monophyletic group that we called “M.” The remaining HCV strains (group dispersed or “D”) were interspersed along the phylogenetic trees. When comparing both groups of HCV‐1a, 10 amino acid differences were located in functional domains of E2 and NS5A proteins that appeared to affect eventually the peptides binding to MHC‐I molecules thus favoring immune escape and contributing to the divergence of HCV genotypes. Bayesian coalescent analyses for HCV‐1a cluster M isolates indicated that the time to the most recent common ancestor (tMRCA) overlaps with the age estimated recently for the HIV‐BF epidemic in Argentina. Furthermore, the genomic characterization based on pol gene analysis from HIV viremic patients showed that most HIV isolates from patients coinfected with HCV‐1a cluster M were BF recombinants with identical recombination patterns. In conclusion, these results suggest the presence of an HCV‐1a monophyletic cluster with a potential HIV co‐transmission by phylogenetic analyses. J. Med. Virol. 84:570–581, 2012. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.