ANALYSIS OF A RAPE CASE BY DIRECT SEQUENCING OF THE HUMAN-IMMUNODEFICIENCY-VIRUS TYPE-1 POL AND GAG GENES

Transmission of human immunodeficiency,virus type 1 (HIV-1) from a mal e accused of rape and deliberate transmission of HIV-1 was investigate d by sequencing of the HIV-1 pol and gag genes from virus obtained fro m the male and from the female victim. Parts of the reverse transcript ase and p17(gag) genes were amplified and directly sequenced from uncu ltured peripheral blood mononuclear cells. The sequences were compared with sequences from 21 unrelated HIV-1-infected controls from the sam e geographic area (Stockholm, Sweden). Bootstrap analysis of phylogene tic trees demonstrated that the sequences from the female were signifi cantly more closely related to the sequences from the male than to seq uences from the controls. Furthermore, we found that the male and fema le shared two distinct genetic variants of HIV-1. In p17(gag) the majo r variant had an unusual, out-of frame deletion of 3 nucleotides which the minor variant lacked. These results indicated that the male had t ransmitted more than one infectious unit to the female. From this stud y we concluded that it was highly likely that the HIV-1 strains carrie d by the male and the female were closely epidemiologically linked.