GENETIC-ANALYSIS OF HIV-1 DURING RAPID PROGRESSION TO AIDS IN AN APPARENTLY HEALTHY MAN

We encountered a case of HIV-I infection in a previously healthy man, which was characterized by rapid progression to AIDS and death within 7 months in association with high levels of antigenemia throughout the clinical course and no humoral immune response for at least 6 months. Genetic changes of the third variable domain (V3) of the envelope gen e of HIV-1 in serum samples were analyzed at four time points during h is rapid clinical course. The nucleotide changes were confined to a ma ximum of three substitutions among 105 nucleotides of the V3 region. A major population of the viral clones in this patient showed one amino acid substitution from aspartic acid (a negatively charged amino acid ) to lysine (a positively charged amino acid) at position 30 from the first cysteine of the V3 loop. This substitution was thought to be ass ociated with phenotypic changes, and viruses with this sequence in the V3 region had a strong syncytium-inducing ability in MT-4 cells. It a ppears that the lack of a humoral immune response accelerated disease progression in our patient and a genetic change that appeared to produ ce a phenotypic change occurred at an early stage of the disease.