Nature： HIV的前世今生

　　

生物通报道，Nature杂志最新10月1日最新报道，美国亚利桑那大学生态与进化生物学系（Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona）联合比利时、澳大利亚、丹麦、刚果的生物学家对来自1960年的一名女性淋巴结组织切片进行研究，填补了HIV进化树的研究空白。

 

HIV-1病毒序列是研究HIV病毒进化的素材。科学家们最早获得的HIV病毒序列是1959年（编号为ZR59），之后获得的HIV病毒最早是1976年的HIV病毒序列。科学家们从金沙萨大学档案馆的一个历史性标本获的艾滋病出现之前的HIV基因序列。名为“DRC60”的样品来自1960年，是当时比属刚果Léopoldville（即现在的刚果民主共和国首都金沙萨）的一位成年女性身上所取的一个淋巴结活检切片。DRC60使得研究人员有可能对艾滋病出现之前的古老HIV-1序列首次进行系统进化分析，其办法是与来自同一时期的另一个病毒序列（来自1959年所取的一个血浆样品，也是在金沙萨）进行对比。 分析结果支持这样的观点：HIV-1在中-西非的多样化过程是早在人们发现艾滋病流行之前出现的。

 

也就是说，艾滋病已经折磨人类整整有一个世纪之久。

 

Nature原文摘要：Direct evidence of extensive diversity of HIV-1 in Kinshasa by 1960

 

【Abstract】

Human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) sequences that pre-date the recognition of AIDS are critical to defining the time of origin and the timescale of virus evolution1, 2. A viral sequence from 1959 (ZR59) is the oldest known HIV-1 infection1. Other historically documented sequences, important calibration points to convert evolutionary distance into time, are lacking, however; ZR59 is the only one sampled before 1976. Here we report the amplification and characterization of viral sequences from a Bouin's-fixed paraffin-embedded lymph node biopsy specimen obtained in 1960 from an adult female in Léopoldville, Belgian Congo (now Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)), and we use them to conduct the first comparative evolutionary genetic study of early pre-AIDS epidemic HIV-1 group M viruses. Phylogenetic analyses position this viral sequence (DRC60) closest to the ancestral node of subtype A (excluding A2). Relaxed molecular clock analyses incorporating DRC60 and ZR59 date the most recent common ancestor of the M group to near the beginning of the twentieth century. The sizeable genetic distance between DRC60 and ZR59 directly demonstrates that diversification of HIV-1 in west-central Africa occurred long before the recognized AIDS pandemic. The recovery of viral gene sequences from decades-old paraffin-embedded tissues opens the door to a detailed palaeovirological investigation of the evolutionary history of HIV-1 that is not accessible by other methods.

 

（生物通 张欢）