HIV‐1 coreceptor usage in perinatally infected Thai children

HIV‐1 coreceptor usage in children who were born to HIV‐1 infected mothers in Thailand is not well characterized. Here, the prevalence of coreceptor usage and genotype among HIV‐1 infected children in Thailand were observed. Proviral DNA from 284 HIV‐1 infected children who received HIV‐1 early infant diagnosis between 2007 and 2013 under the National AIDS Program were studied. Genotypic tropism testing was performed based on amplification of the V3 region in a triplicate nested‐PCR following by DNA sequencing. HIV‐1 coreceptor usage was determined using Geno2pheno[coreceptor] with a false positive rate of 10%. Samples from 267 children were successfully amplified and coreceptor usage could be determined. Two hundred and thirty‐seven (89%) children were infected with CRF01_AE, 29 (11%) were subtype B and 1 was subtype C. CCR5‐using variants were found in 148 (55%) children and CXCR4‐using variants were observed in 119 (45%) children. No significant differences in coreceptor usage and age, gender, signs of HIV infection, children's or maternal ARV receiving were observed. The only significant difference was found in N‐linked glycosylation characteristic. This evidence showed that X4 viruses can be highly observed at an early age of children which has important clinical implications and may limit usage of CCR5 antagonist family.