Human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) sequences that pre-date the recognition of AIDS are critical to defining the time of origin and the timescale of virus evolution1,2. A viral sequence from 1959 (ZR59) is the oldest known HIV-1 infection1. Other historically documented sequences, important calibration points to convert evolutionary distance into time, are lacking, however; ZR59 is the only one sampled prior to 1976. Here we report the amplification and characterization of viral sequences from a Bouin's-fixed paraffin-embedded lymph node biopsy specimen obtained in 1960 from an adult female in Léopoldville, Belgian Congo (now Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo [DRC]), and we use it to conduct the first comparative evolutionary genetic study of early pre-AIDS epidemic HIV-1 group M viruses. Phylogenetic analyses position this viral sequence (DRC60) closest to the ancestral node of subtype A (excluding A2). Relaxed molecular clock analyses incorporating DRC60 and ZR59 date the M group's most recent common ancestor near the beginning of the 20th century. The sizeable genetic distance between DRC60 and ZR59 directly demonstrates that diversification of HIV-1 in west-Central Africa occurred long before the recognized AIDS pandemic. The recovery of viral gene sequences from decades-old paraffin-embedded tissues opens the door to a detailed paleovirological investigation of the evolutionary history of HIV-1 that is not accessible by other methods.
Background. Previous genetic association studies of human immunodeficiency virus-1 (HIV-1) progression have focused on common human genetic variation ascertained through genome-wide genotyping. Methods. We sought to systematically assess the full spectrum of functional variation in protein coding gene regions on HIV-1 progression through exome sequencing of 1327 individuals. Genetic variants were tested individually and in aggregate across genes and gene sets for an influence on HIV-1 viral load. Results. Multiple single variants within the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) region were observed to be strongly associated with HIV-1 outcome, consistent with the known impact of classical HLA alleles. However, no single variant or gene located outside of the MHC region was significantly associated with HIV progression. Set-based association testing focusing on genes identified as being essential for HIV replication in genome-wide small interfering RNA (siRNA) and clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) studies did not reveal any novel associations. Conclusions. These results suggest that exonic variants with large effect sizes are unlikely to have a major contribution to host control of HIV infection. ; This study has been financed in part within the framework of the Swiss HIV Cohort Study (www.shcs.ch) project #651 and supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (www.snf.ch) grant #148522 (J.F.). The International HIV Controllers Study was made possible through a generous donation from the Mark and Lisa Schwartz Foundation and a subsequent award from the Collaboration for AIDS Vaccine Discovery of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (www.cavd.org). This work was also supported in part by the Harvard University Center for AIDS Research (cfar.globalhealth.harvard.edu) grant P-30-AI060354; University of California San Francisco (UCSF) Center for AIDS Research (cfar.ucsf.edu) grant P-30 AI27763; UCSF Clinical and Translational Science Institute (https://ctsi.ucsf.edu) grant UL1 RR024131; Center for AIDS Research Network of Integrated Clinical Systems (http://cfar.globalhealth.harvard.edu) grant R24 AI067039; and the National Institutes for Health (www.nih.gov) grants AI28568 and AI030914 (B.D.W.). The AIDS Clinical Trials Group was supported by NIH grants AI069513, AI34835, AI069432, AI069423, AI069477, AI069501, AI069474, AI069428, AI69467, AI069415, Al32782, AI27661, AI25859, AI28568, AI30914, AI069495, AI069471, AI069532, AI069452, AI069450, AI069556, AI069484, AI069472, AI34853, AI069465, AI069511, AI38844, AI069424, AI069434, AI46370, AI68634, AI069502, AI069419, AI068636, RR024975, AI077505, AI110527, and TR000445 (D.W.H.). For the CASCADE Consortium, the research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union Seventh Programme (FP7/2007–2013) under EuroCoord (www.eurocoord.net) grant agreement no. 260694 (K.P.) and the Spanish Network of HIV/AIDS grant nos. RD06/006, RD12/0017/0018 and RD16CIII/0002/0006 (J.DA.). A portion of the data in this manuscript were collected by the Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study (MACS). MACS (Principal Investigators): Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health (Joseph Margolick, Todd Brown), U01-AI35042; Northwestern University (Steven Wolinsky), U01-AI35039; University of California, Los Angeles (Roger Detels, Oto Martinez-Maza, Otto Yang), U01-AI35040; University of Pittsburgh (Charles Rinaldo, Lawrence A. Kingsley, Jeremy J. Martinson), U01-AI35041; the Center for Analysis and Management of MACS, Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health (Lisa Jacobson, Gypsyamber D'Souza), UM1-AI35043. The MACS is funded primarily by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), with additional co-funding from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), and the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). Targeted supplemental funding for specific projects was also provided by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), and the National Institute on Deafness and Communication Disorders (NIDCD). MACS data collection is also supported by UL1-TR001079 (JHU ICTR) from the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) a component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and NIH Roadmap for Medical Research. The contents of this publication are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Johns Hopkins ICTR, or NCATS. The MACS website is located at http://aidscohortstudy.org/ ; Sí
