HIV-1 genotyping tropism profile in an HIV-positive population throughout the Russian Federation

• Main Authors: Alexey Lopatukhin, Dmitry Kireev, Dmitry Kuevda, Anastasia Pokrovskaya, Galina Tsyganova, Galina Korovina, Alexander Pinsker, Natalia Dementeva, Natalia Sizova, Olga Peksheva, Natalia Zaytseva, Nikolai Nosov, Nail Urazov, Valery Gerasimov, Natalia Ermolinskaya, Natalia Gerasimova, Tatyana Sandyreva, Ludmila Volova, Lilia Grezina, Anna Kolomeets, Irina Sergeeva, Dmitry Neshumaev, Anatoly Boyko, Valeria Kotova, Ludmila Balakhontseva, Dmitry Kolpakov, Andrey Shemshura, Sergey Saukhat, Evgeniy Bukin, Andrey Polyakov, Rolf Kaiser, German Shipulin, Vadim Pokrovsky
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Taylor & Francis Group 2017-01-01
• Series: Cogent Medicine
• Subjects: receptors, ccr5; receptors, cxcr4; molecular epidemiology; hiv-1; russia
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/2331205X.2017.1311470

Most HIV-1 tropism studies have involved non-A subtypes. Our aim was to study the prevalence of R5- and non-R5-tropic HIV-1 variants and the tropism occurrence relative to the CD4 counts, treatment experiences, transmission routes and other features of infection in Russia, where subtype A is presumably predominant. In this multicenter, single-step, cross-sectional, epidemiologic study, 943 HIV-1-infected patients were enrolled at 12 AIDS centers throughout Russia. Viral tropism was determined using a genotype method-based kit. The V3 loop sequences were analyzed using the geno2pheno resource. The tropism was successfully predicted for 823 (87.3%) patients. Frequencies of R5-tropic and non-R5-tropic viruses in successfully analyzed samples were 70.2% (578) and 29.8% (245), respectively. Co-receptor usage correlated significantly only with the treatment experiences (p = 0.018) and CD4 counts (p = 0.004). But there was no dependence of R5/non-R5 co-receptor usage frequencies on presence/absence of a therapy change (p = 0.664) or HIV infection duration (p = 0.458). According to the env sequences, 457 (83.6%) of the samples in study were subtype A and 70 (12.8%) were subtype B. This indicates a stabilizing of immune system and thus little emergence of X4 viruses. We suggest that CCR5-antagonists could be used in both naïve and experienced patients in Russia after determination of HIV tropism.