Title

Authors

Affiliation

Department of Virology, Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine, 2-1 Seiryomachi, Aoba-ku, Sendai city, Miyagi, Japan-9808575

Email

chandranath@med.tohoku.ac.jp; oshitanih@med.tohoku.ac.jp; *Corresponding authors

Article Type

Hypothesis

Date

Received January 19, 2015; Accepted March 02, 2015; Published March 31, 2015

HIV-1Tat (trans-acting activator of transcription) plays essential roles in the replication through viral mRNA and genome transcription from the HIV-1 LTR promoter. However, Tat undergoes continuous amino acid substitutions. As a consequence, the virus escapes from host immunity indicating that genetic diversity of Tat protein in major HIV-1 subtypes is required to be continuously monitored. We analyzed available full-length HIV-1 sequences of subtypes B (n=493) and C (n=280) strains circulating worldwide. We observed 81% and 84% nucleotide sequence identities of HIV-1 Tat for subtypes B and C, respectively. Based on phylogenetic and mutation analyses, global diversity of subtype B was apparently higher compared to that of subtype C. Positively selected sites, such as positions Ser68 and Ser70 in both subtypes, were located in the Tat-transactivation responsive RNA (TAR) interaction domain. We also found positively selected sites in exon 2, such as positions Ser75, Pro77, Asp80, Pro81 and Ser87 for both subtypes. Our study provides useful information on the full-length HIV-1 Tat sequences in globally circulating strains.

Keywords

full-length HIV-1 Tat, Tat, molecular evolution, Tat genetic diversity, Tat genetics

Citation

Roy et al. Bioinformation 11(3): 151-160 (2015)
 

Edited by

P Kangueane

ISSN

0973-2063

Publisher

Biomedical Informatics

License

This is an Open Access article which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. This is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.