Study on relationship between gene variation and disease progression of HIV/AIDS patients

  Objective   To study on the characters of HIV-1 Tat exon 1 amino acid sequence and mutations and the relationship with disease progression among HIV-1 infected people and AIDS patients.

  Methods   To collect 22 cases.whole blood samples of HIV carriers and AIDS patients in Liaoning province and to extract the PBMC genome DNA.The HIV-1 tatexon 1 was amplified by nested-PCR with tat specific primers.Products were sequenced directly.Sequences were aligned, translated and analyzed.

  Results   22 cases HIV-1 strains epidemic in Liaoning were found to be of genetic subtype B' and B'/C.In AIDS group, finding some amino acid mutations at specific position of tat exon 1, position 58 T substitutes A.This variation appeared only in AIDS group.In addition some other variations in position 7, 20, 24, 59, 62, 64 were found.AIDS group was higher than asymptomatic HIV-1 infection group as to these variation.

  Conclusion   In AIDS patients of subtype B.and B./C, there was amino acid sequence variation of HIV-1 tat exon 1 which position 58 T substituted A, which indicated its relationship with disease progression.At the same time, some other substitution variations of tat exon 1 in AIDS patients was found, whose significance needed further research.