VARIABILITY ANALYSIS OF HIV-1 GP120 V3 REGION - IV - DISTRIBUTION-FUNCTIONS FOR INTRA-SUBTYPE AND INTER-SUBTYPE AMINO-ACID HAMMING DISTANCES

Distribution functions for intra- and inter- HIV-1 V3-loop subtypes am ino acid Hamming distances were calculated (850 V3-loop sequences from the Los Alamos HIV-1 Database (1996) were used). These functions have pronounced bell-like shape. Such shapes of the histograms for HIV-1 V 3 intra- and inter-subtype distriutions are discussed to confirm the a pplicability of different hierarchical cluster procedures (see ref. 17 ) for HIV-1 V3 classification. Two-mode distribution for the subtype E could sertificate that this subtype includes two thinner taxons.