The Vpr gene polymorphism of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 in China and its clinical significance.

Recent studies have explored that mutated Human immunodeficiency virus type 1(HIV-1) Vpr genes likely influence clinical manifestations of HIV infected patients. However, the relationship between the mutation sites on HIV Vpr gene and subsequent function changes is still not clear. In this study we investigated such relationship in analyzing the Vpr genes of HIV-1 viruses isolated from 208 HIV-1 infected patients from different regions in China. Reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and nested PCR were used to amplify HIV-1 Vpr gene extracted from plasma of 208 HIV-1 infected patients and 153 isolates displayed the target gene sequences. Biological analysis software analyzed the deduced amino acid sequence, and identified the characteristics of the polymorphism of HIV-1 Vpr gene and its clinical significance. Results show the sequence subtypes as follows: CRF01-AE is 51.63%, subtype C is 24.84%, ubtype B is 17.65%, CRF03-AB is 3.92% and CRF08-BC is 1.31%. This paper revealed for the first time the HIV-1 Vpr gene polymorphism in HIV-1 positive individuals in China.: the subtype CRF01-AE is the main Vpr gene subtype in this region. The mutations in the C-terminal were more obvious than those observed in the N-terminal. It was also discovered that in the 77th position, 84.3% of the 153 amino acid sequences were glutamine (Q), which differ from overseas reports. Our data showed that the mutations 63, 70, 85, 86, 89 and 94 of the Vpr gene were possibly correlated with the clinical manifestations of the HIV-1 infected individuals.