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Title

Pattern of the evolution of HIV-1 env gene in Côte d’Ivoire

 

Authors

Sery Gonedelé Bi1, 2*, Didier P Sokouri1, Kouakou Tiékoura1, Oulo Alla N’Nan1, Marcel Lolo1, Félix Gnangbé1 & Assanvo SP N’Guetta1

 

 

Affiliation

1Laboratoire de Génétique, UFR Biosciences, Université Félix Houphouët Boigny, Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, 22 BP 582 Abidjan 22 ; 2Centre Suisse de Recherches Scientifiques en Côte d’Ivoire, 01 BP 1303 Abidjan 01

 

 

Email

gonedelebi@yahoo.fr; *Corresponding author

 

Article Type

Hypothesis

 

Date

Received September 25, 2014; Revised November 11, 2014; Accepted November 12, 2014; Published November 27, 2014

 

Abstract

Côte d’Ivoire continues to have the highest HIV-1 prevalence rate in West Africa, although the infection number is in constant decline. The external envelope protein of the viruses is a likely site of selection, and responsible for receptor binding and entry into host cells, and therefore constitutes an ideal region with which to investigate the evolutionary processes acting on HIV-1. In this study, we analyse 189 envelope glycoprotein V3 loop region sequences of viruse isolates from 1995 to 2009, from HIV-1 untreated patients living in Côte d’Ivoire, to decipher the temporal relationship between disease diversity, divergence and selection. Our analyses show that the nonsynonymous and synonymous ratio (dN/dS) was lower than 1 for viral populations analysed within 15 years, which showed the sequences did not undergo adequate immune pressure. The phylogenetic tree of the sequences analysed demonstrated distinctly long internal branches and short external branches, suggesting that only a small number of viruses infected the new host cell at each transmission. In addition to identifying sites under purifying selection, we also identified neutral sites that can cause false positive inference of selection. These sites presented form a resource for future studies of selection pressures acting on HIV-1 env gene in Côte d’Ivoire and other West African countries. 

 

Keywords

HIV-1, env gene, diversity, selection, Côte d’Ivoire

 

Citation

Gonedelé Bi et al.   Bioinformation 10(11): 671-678 (2014)
 

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.