Short Communication: Molecular Epidemiology of HIV Type 1 Infection in Northern Greece (2009-2010): Evidence of a Transmission Cluster of HIV Type 1 Subtype A1 Drug-Resistant Strains Among Men Who Have Sex with Men

摘要

A prospective molecular epidemiology study of HTV-1 infection was conducted in newly diagnosed and antiretroviral-naive patients in Northern Greece between 2009 and 2010 using a predefined enrolling strategy. Phylogenetic trees of the pol sequences obtained in this study with reference sequences indicated that subtypes B and Al were the most common subtypes present and accounted for 44.9% and 42.9%, respectively, followed by subtype C (3.1%), CRF02_AG (4.1%), CRF04_cpx (2.0%), and subtypes CRF01_01, Fl, and G (1.0%). A high rate of clustered transmission of subtype Al-resistant strains to reverse transcriptase (RT) inhibitors was observed among men having sex with men. Indeed, 15 out of 17 study subjects (88.2%) infected with transmitted drug resistance (TDR) strains were implicated in transmission clusters, 10 of whom (66.7%) were men who have sex with men (MSM), and were also infected with subsubtype Al strains. The main cluster within subtype Al (I) included eight men reporting having sex with men from Thessaloniki infected with dual-class RT-resistant strains carrying both T215C and Y181C mutations.