As part of our commitment to promoting international collaboration on AIDS, we have conducted studies with our colleagues from the Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine in Beijing and the UCLA School of Public Health in Los Angeles. Genomic DNA, extracted from filter paper-blotted blood samples, collected in December 1996, from 19 HIV-seropositive professional plasma donors (16 women and 3 men; age range, 25-59 years) living in rural areas of eastern China, were analyzed by amplification and sequencing of a 273-nucleotide region spanning the V3 loop of the gp120-encoding env gene and a 560-nucleotide region encompassing the 5’ p24 gag gene of HIV. Nucleotide sequence alignment and comparison based on the 273-nucleotide env region, indicated that the HIV strains from rural eastern China were genetically most similar to subtype B’ isolates, diverging from Thai and southwestern Chinese (from Yunnan) subtype B’ strains by 1.8-7.3% and 1.5-5.9%, respectively, and differing from HXB2, the North American subtype B prototype, by 19-20.9%. However, the mean nucleotide sequence similarity based on the 526-nucleotide gag gene indicated that the HIV strains from eastern China were genetically similar to the subtype B isolate HXB2 by 95%, and differed from subtype A/E strains from Thailand by 15%. The interstrain gag and env nucleotide sequence similarity among the eastern China HIV strains was 2-3% and 0.4-4.4%, respectively. Phylogenetic analysis based on gag and env gene sequences, revealed that the eastern China HIV strains formed a monophyletic group. Although 60% of the nearly 5,000 HIV/AIDS cases reported in PRC have been from the southwestern province of Yunnan, infection is becoming widespread within the interior of PRC. Thus far, HIV subtypes B, C and E have been identified among high-risk behavior groups in China. The uniform occurrence and high interstrain similarity of subtype B’ strains among PD in eastern China\ is consistent with a common source of infection. Intensified efforts are underway to analyze proviral HIV sequences from additional DNA samples from high-risk behavior groups in the People’s Republic of China.

Nerurkar, V.R., Wu, Z., Dashwood, W-M., Woodward, C.L., Zhang, M., Detels, R., and Yanagihara, R.: Complete nef gene sequence of HIV type 1 subtype B’ from professional plasma donors in the Peoples’s Republic of China. AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses 1998;14:461-464.