Cj. Gordon et El. Delwart, Genetic diversity of primary HIV-1 isolates and their sensitivity to antibody-mediated neutralization, VIROLOGY, 272(2), 2000, pp. 326-330
Wide differences exist among primary isolates of HIV-1 in their sensitivity
to antibody-mediated neutralization. While it is well documented that even
short-term tissue culture amplification of HIV-1 leads to a reduction in t
he genetic diversity of the viral quasispecies seen in vivo, viral isolates
, while relatively homogeneous, are generally not clonal. We investigated w
hether the extent of genetic diversity within primary viral isolates correl
ates with their general susceptibility to neutralization. We compared the n
umber of V1V2 and V3-V5 envelope variants detectable within 16 primary isol
ates selected to represent the extremes of the neutralization sensitive and
resistant phenotypes. Using DNA heteroduplex tracking assays to estimate t
he extent of genetic diversity in these two regions of the envelope locus,
we found that these primary isolates were made up of one to five distinguis
hable V1V2 and V3-V5 sequence variants. We found that higher levels of env
genetic diversity did not correlate with increased resistance to antibody n
eutralization. (C) 2000 Academic Press.