Diversity of envelope glycoprotein from human immunodeficiency virus type 1 of recent seroconverters in Thailand

The envelope-coding sequence of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) was determined for 11 Thai seroconverters between 1995 and 1996, On the ba sis of the env sequences, all subjects were infected with HIV subtype E. Co mpared with the interpatient protein diversity among HIV-1 Thai reference s equences from 1990 to 1992 (4.4%), the diversity among the 1995-1996 seroco nverters was approximately double (9.5%), The tetrapeptide tip of the V3 lo op was invariant for 10 of the 11 seroconverters, and identical to that obs erved in sequences derived from the 1990-1992 group. However, in the V3 reg ion, sequences from 2 of the 11 subjects demonstrated more than 5 amino aci d changes relative to the reference strains. This may represent the "aging" of the HIV epidemic seen in other endemic regions. These findings may have substantial implications for vaccine development and evaluation for both H IV antibody and cytotoxic T lymphocyte repertoire recognition.