[72] HIV-1 SUPERINFECTIONS IN A COHORT OF COMMERCIAL SEX WORKERS IN BURKINA FASO AS ASSESSED BY A NOVEL AUTOLOGOUS HETERODUPLEX MOBILITY PROCEDURE, ANRS 1245 STUDY

2nd International AIDS Society Conference on HIV Pathogenesis and Treatment

Paris, France - July 13 - 16, 2003

[TITLE:] HIV-1 SUPERINFECTIONS IN A COHORT OF COMMERCIAL SEX WORKERS IN BURKINA FASO AS ASSESSED BY A NOVEL AUTOLOGOUS HETERODUPLEX MOBILITY PROCEDURE, ANRS 1245 STUDY

[AUTHOR(S):] O Manigart^1,2, V Courgnaud², O Sanou¹, D Valéa^1,2, N Nagot^1,2, N Meda^1,2, E Delaporte², M Peeters² and P Van de Perre²
¹Centre Muraz, Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso; and ²Mixed Research Unit 145 (UMR 145) Institute for Research and Development (IRD) and University of Montpellier 1, Montpellier, France

IAS Conf HIV Pathog Treat 2003 Jul 13-16;2nd: Abstract No. 72
Antiviral Therapy 2003; 8(Suppl. 1):S203

[ABSTRACT:]: The study of HIV-1 co- or super-infections requires both surveillance of exposed populations and availability of a screening tool. We describe a simple procedure based on Heteroduplex Mobility Assay (HMA). With the objective of identifying heteroduplexes corresponding to divergent viral populations in the same individual, HMA was applied on single DNA samples from each subject in a prospective cohort of Commercial Sex Workers (CSW) in Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso. After denaturation and renaturation of env DNA amplicons, migration of hybridized DNA was allowed on polyacrylamide gel. HIV-1 co-infections were suspected by slow migration of heteroduplex, at a level comparable to mixed reference strains. After polyacrylamide bands heteroduplex extraction and cloning in plasmid vector, identification of two phylogenetic distinct clones was confirmed by sequencing divergent clones identified through a second step of autologous HMA of two by two clones. Among 147 HIV-1 infected CSW, four had autologous HMA profile comparable to the low mobility of hybridized DNA from mixed reference strains representing most frequent HIV-1 clades and Circulating Recombinant Forms (CRF) prevalent in Burkina Faso. In two of them, two phylogenetic distinct HIV populations were coexisting. The first woman presented with a CRF02-AG and CRF06-cpx co-infection and the second with a CRF02-AG and a divergent clade A virus co-infection. In both women, retrospective analyses of stored samples showed acquisition of a second virus concomitant with an increasing plasma HIV RNA. Autologous HMA procedure, followed by acrylamide extraction of heteroduplexes, allowed identifying HIV-1 co- and super-infections in a large cohort study. HIV-1 super-infection is not an uncommon phenomenon.

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