A substantial transmission bottleneck among newly and recently HIV-1-infected injection drug users in St Petersburg, Russia.

Masharsky, Alexey E; Dukhovlinova, Elena N; Verevochkin, Sergei V; Toussova, Olga V; Skochilov, Roman V; Anderson, Jeffrey A; Hoffman, Irving; Cohen, Myron S et al. · J Infect Dis · 2010

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Abstract

There are limited data on the genetic complexity of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) after transmission among a cohort of injection drug users (IDUs). We used single-genome amplification of HIV-1 env to determine the genotypic characteristics of virus among IDUs with acute infection in St Petersburg, Russia. Our results indicate that a single variant was transmitted in a majority of cases (9 of 13 participants), which is analogous to what is observed in sexual transmission. These data are most consistent with a genetic bottleneck during transmission by injection drug use that is due to a small inoculum, which most often results in the transmission of a low-complexity viral population.

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