Recombination elevates the effective evolutionary rate and facilitates the establishment of HIV-1 infection in infants after mother-to-child transmission

摘要

BackgroundPrevious studies have demonstrated that single HIV-1 genotypes are commonly transmitted from mother to child, but such analyses primarily used single samples from mother and child. It is possible that in a single sample, obtained early after infection, only the most replication competent virus is detected even when other forms may have been transmitted. Such forms may have advantages later in infection, and may thus be detected in follow-up samples. Because HIV-1 frequently recombines, phylogenetic analyses that ignore recombination may miss transmission of multiple forms if they recombine after transmission. Moreover, recombination may facilitate adaptation, thus providing an advantage in establishing infection. The effect of recombination on viral evolution in HIV-1 infected children has not been well defined.