Phylogeographic Analyses Reveal the Early Expansion and Frequent Bidirectional Cross-Border Transmissions of Non-pandemic HIV-1 Subtype B Strains in Hispaniola

The human immunodeficiency virus-type 1 (HIV-1) subtype B has probably been circulating on the island of Hispaniola since the 1960s, but information about the early viral history on this Caribbean island is scarce. In this study, we reconstruct the dissemination dynamics of early divergent non-pande...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Frontiers in microbiology 2019-06, Vol.10, p.1340-1340
Main Authors: Bello, Gonzalo, Arantes, Ighor, Lacoste, Vincent, Ouka, Marlene, Boncy, Jacques, Césaire, Raymond, Liautaud, Bernard, Nacher, Mathieu, Dos Santos, Georges
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Haiti
HIV-1
Life Sciences
Microbiology
Microbiology and Parasitology
non-pandemic
origin
phylodynamics
subtype B
Virology
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The human immunodeficiency virus-type 1 (HIV-1) subtype B has probably been circulating on the island of Hispaniola since the 1960s, but information about the early viral history on this Caribbean island is scarce. In this study, we reconstruct the dissemination dynamics of early divergent non-pandemic subtype B lineages (designated B ) on Hispaniola by analyzing a country-balanced dataset of HIV-1 B sequences from Haiti ( = 103) and the Dominican Republic ( = 123). Phylogenetic analyses supported that B strains from Haiti and the Dominican Republic were highly intermixed between each other, although the null hypothesis of completely random mixing was rejected. Bayesian phylogeographic analyses placed the ancestral B virus in Haiti and the Dominican Republic with the same posterior probability support. These analyses estimate frequent viral transmissions between Haiti and the Dominican Republic since the early 1970s onwards, and the presence of local B transmission networks in both countries before first AIDS cases was officially recognized. Demographic reconstructions point that the B epidemic in Hispaniola grew exponentially until the 1990s. These findings support that the HIV-1 epidemics in Haiti and the Dominican Republic have been connected by a recurrent bidirectional viral flux since the initial phase, which poses a great challenge in tracing the geographic origin of the B epidemic within Hispaniola using only genetic data. These data also reinforce the notion that prevention programs have successfully reduced the rate of new HIV-1 transmissions in Hispaniola since the end of the 1990s.
ISSN:1664-302X
1664-302X
DOI:10.3389/fmicb.2019.01340