Identification and characterization of previously described epitopes in HIV-1 subtypes B, C, F and BF in Brazil

• Autor(a) principal: Queiroz,Artur Trancoso Lopo de
• Data de Publicação: 2007
• Outros Autores: Santos,Luciane Amorim, Moreau,Domingos Ramon, Oliveira,Tulio de, Watkins,David I., Galvão-Castro,Bernardo, Alcantara,Luiz Carlos Junior
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Brazilian Journal of Infectious Diseases
• Texto Completo: http://old.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1413-86702007000100008
• topic: HIV-1; env; vaccine; epitope

Genetic analysis of HIV-1 is essential to improve treatment strategies and select epitopes for vaccine programs. The objective of this study was to determine whether known CD4+ and CD8+ epitopes were present in Brazilian HIV-1 strains. We used previously described CD8+ and CD4+ epitopes from the Los Alamos laboratory to search for these epitopes in the Brazilian sequences using the HIVbase program and we compared the frequency results with the analyses using physical-chemical profile tools from Network Protein Sequence Analysis (NPSA), and the SYFPEITHI program. Furthermore, this analysis was carried out with the Prosite tool using the GeneDoc program and ds/dn analyses using the Synonymous Nonsynonymous Analysis Program (SNAP). The HIVbase epitope mapping demonstrated that 30 CD8+ and 6 CD4+ epitopes were present in the Brazilian sequences at a high frequency. Only two of these epitopes were heavily glycosylated. Interestingly, ds/dn analyses showed evidence of purifying selective pressure. These types of analyses could be useful for the assessment of possible vaccine efficiency in populations.