Abstract
Most HIV-1 subtype B infections in North America and Europe seem to have resulted from the expansion of a single pandemic lineage (BPANDEMIC) disseminated from the United States (US). Some non-pandemic subtype B strains of Caribbean origin (BCAR) may have also reached North America and Europe, but their epidemiological relevance in those regions remains largely unknown. Here we analyze a total of 20,045 HIV-1 subtype B pol sequences from the US, Canada, and Europe, to estimate the prevalence and to reconstruct the spatiotemporal dynamics of dissemination of HIV-1 BCAR strains in those regions. We find that BCAR strains were probably disseminated from the Caribbean into North America and Europe at multiple times since the early 1970s onwards. The BCAR strains reached the US, Canada and at least 16 different European countries, where they account for a very low fraction (<5%) of subtype B infections, with exception of the Czech Republic (7.7%). We also find evidence of the onward transmission of BCAR clades in the US, Canada, the Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK, as well as short-distance spreading of BCAR lineages between neighboring European countries from Central and Western Europe, and long-distance dissemination between the US and Europe.
Highlights
Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 (HIV-1) subtype B pol sequences from the United States (US), Canada, and Europe, to estimate the prevalence and to reconstruct the spatiotemporal dynamics of dissemination of HIV-1 B strains of Caribbean origin (BCAR) strains in those regions
The final ML phylogenetic trees clearly showed that the BCAR sequences from North America and Europe were dispersed among the BCAR reference sequences of Caribbean origin, while all BPANDEMIC reference sequences branched in a medium supported (SH-approximate likelihood-ratio test (aLRT) = 0.85–0.90) clade nested within basal BCAR reference sequences (Fig. 1)
This study confirms that the HIV-1 subtype B epidemic in North America and Europe is mostly driven by the dissemination of the BPANDEMIC lineage, and demonstrates several independent introductions of non-pandemic BCAR strains of Caribbean origin into those regions
Summary
HIV-1 subtype B pol sequences from the US, Canada, and Europe, to estimate the prevalence and to reconstruct the spatiotemporal dynamics of dissemination of HIV-1 BCAR strains in those regions. We find evidence of the onward transmission of BCAR clades in the US, Canada, the Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK, as well as shortdistance spreading of BCAR lineages between neighboring European countries from Central and Western Europe, and long-distance dissemination between the US and Europe. The HIV-1 subtype B epidemic in North America and Europe probably started via a single viral introduction from Haiti into the US around the late 1960s, followed by rapid viral dissemination within the US and from the US to other American countries and Europe, leading to the origin of a pandemic subtype B clade (BPANDEMIC)[12]. The non-pandemic BCAR lineages did not remained restricted to the Caribbean region, and reached most countries from Latin America[20] and despite the overall low prevalence (
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