HUMAN-IMMUNODEFICIENCY-VIRUS TYPE-1 RNA POPULATIONS IN FECES WITH HIGHER HOMOLOGY TO INTESTINAL POPULATIONS THAN TO BLOOD POPULATIONS

To determine whether human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) in fa eces is representative of the HIV-1 population in intestinal tissue, w e studied HIV-1 V3 variation in faeces, intestinal biopsies and serum from two individuals, Phylogenic analysis of HIV-1 V3-coding RNA in fa eces from one individual showed three distinct genotypes, Viruses belo nging to all three genotypes were also present in sigmoidal tissue and in serum, Jejunal tissue contained two of these three genotypes, Anal ysis of the V3-coding RNA in faeces of the other individual showed fiv e distinct genotypes, One of these genotypes was present in all specim ens from this individual, Besides this shared genotype, jejunal tissue and serum contained sequences belonging to one other genotype, In add ition, one of the other three V3 variants was detected in sigmoidal ti ssue, For both persons the shared HIV-1 RNA genotypes in faeces and se rum displayed a distinctly different frequency distribution, In one in dividual, the genotype which was detected in a majority of the clones in faeces (59%) and as a minority in serum (11%), was the most abundan t genotype in jejunal and sigmoidal tissue (61% and 80%, respectively) , For the other individual the genotype that was present in faeces in a significant number of clones (43%) was detected in serum as a minori ty (8%), whereas this genotype composed 47% of the clones isolated fro m jejunal tissue, Taken together these data suggest that faeces contai n HIV-1 sequences that are derived from local HIV-1 replication in int estinal tissue.