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Clinical and Diagnostic Laboratory Immunology, September 2001, p. 884-890, Vol. 8, No. 5
Retrovirus Laboratory, Department of
Virology, Statens Serum Institut,1 and
Institute of Forensic Medicine, Department of Forensic
Pathology, University of Copenhagen,2
Copenhagen, Denmark.
Received 4 December 2000/Returned for modification 15 March
2001/Accepted 23 May 2001
Very few criminal cases involving human immunodeficiency virus type
1 (HIV-1) transmission have been described. We report on an HIV-1
transmission case with a child being infected by an HIV-1-positive man.
The objective was to determine through molecular epidemiology and
phylogenetic analyses whether HIV-1 from the HIV-1-positive man could
be the source of infection in the HIV-1-positive child, as claimed by
the authorities. We conducted genetic analysis of three different parts
of the HIV-1 genome (gag, pol, and env) by PCR,
direct-sequencing, and phylogenetic analyses. We used maximum
likelihood, maximum parsimony, and neighbor-joining methods for the
phylogenetic analyses to investigate whether the sequences from the man
and the child were related. We found that the viral sequences from the
man and the child formed separate clusters in all of the phylogenetic
analyses compared to the local controls. A unique amino acid deletion
was identified in the C2-V3-C3 region of the env gene in
the virus from the man and the child. These results were used in the
criminal court to elucidate whether the virus from the man was related
to the virus from the child. In summary, the results from the
phylogenetic analyses, the sequence distances between the virus from
the man and the virus from the child, and the identification of the
unique molecular fingerprint in the env gene together
indicated that the virus from the man and the virus from the child were
epidemiologically linked.
1071-412X/01/$04.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/CDLI.8.5.884-890.2001
Copyright © 2001, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
Molecular Investigation of Transmission of Human
Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 in a Criminal Case
*
Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of
Virology, Retrovirus Laboratory, Statens Serum Institut, Artillerivej 5, DK-2300 Copenhagen S, Denmark. Phone: 45-32683115. Fax: 45-32683082. E-mail: rma{at}ssi.dk.
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