Abstract
HIV-1 diversity may impact monitoring and vaccine development. We describe the most recent data of HIV-1 variants and their temporal trends in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) from 1976 to 2018 and in Kinshasa from 1983–2018. HIV-1 pol sequencing from dried blood collected in Kinshasa during 2016–2018 was done in 340 HIV-infected children/adolescents/adults to identify HIV-1 variants by phylogenetic reconstructions. Recombination events and transmission clusters were also analyzed. Variant distribution and genetic diversity were compared to historical available pol sequences from the DRC in Los Alamos Database (LANL). We characterized 165 HIV-1 pol variants circulating in Kinshasa (2016–2018) and compared them with 2641 LANL sequences from the DRC (1976–2012) and Kinshasa (1983–2008). During 2016–2018 the main subtypes were A (26.7%), G (9.7%) and C (7.3%). Recombinants accounted for a third of infections (12.7%/23.6% Circulant/Unique Recombinant Forms). We identified the first CRF47_BF reported in Africa and four transmission clusters. A significant increase of subtype A and sub-subtype F1 and a significant reduction of sub-subtype A1 and subtype D were observed in Kinshasa during 2016–2018 compared to variants circulating in the city from 1983 to 2008. We provide unique and updated information related to HIV-1 variants currently circulating in Kinshasa, reporting the temporal trends of subtypes/CRF/URF during 43 years in the DRC, and providing the most extensive data on children/adolescents.
Highlights
Several independent zoonotic transmission events from primates to humans around the beginning of the twentieth century[1] in Central and West Africa gave rise to Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) in the human population, spreading quickly worldwide[2,3]
We present a complete review of HIV-1 variant trends in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) over 43 years (1976–2018) after using all the historical pol sequences available in Los Alamos HIV Sequence Database (LANL) from samples collected in the DRC
The DRC is known as the origin of HIV-1 pandemic and the epicenter for the selection and spreading of many HIV-1 variants to neighboring c ountries[28]
Summary
Several independent zoonotic transmission events from primates to humans around the beginning of the twentieth century[1] in Central and West Africa gave rise to Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) in the human population, spreading quickly worldwide[2,3]. It is more interesting to analyze HIV molecular diversity in an area with a high viral diversity, especially if the place is the origin of a HIV-1 pandemic, where the virus has been circulating for a longer period and new, more pathogenic or transmissible variants could have arised. Our study presents the most recent data related to current circulating HIV-1 variants in pol in Kinshasa during the 2016–2018 period, identifying transmission clusters and updating the genetic diversity. We reclassified all HIV-1 variants after new phylogenetic analysis in all downloaded pol sequences, including the most recent subtype L and new CRF described in the last years. Later we studied the temporal trends of HIV-1 variants in the DRC and Kinshasa considering the sampling year of each sequence
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