immunovirological assessment of hiv-infected patients and phylogenetic analysis of the virus in northeast of iran

Background: the reliable laboratory tests, co-infection with other tumor viruses, and determining the genetic types are very important for therapy and monitoring of the clinical status of human immunodeficiency virus (hiv)-infected subjects. objectives: this study evaluated the co-infection of hiv with hepatitis b virus (hbv), hepatitis c virus (hcv), and human t-cell leukemia virus type 1 (htlv-1), the viral load, the progression of infection, and its correlation with the clinical status. methods: twenty hiv-infected cases were assessed for t cell subpopulations, hbv, hcv, and htlv-1 co-infection, as well as the viral load. for phylogenetic relationships analysis, the hiv-c2-v5 fragment and p17 of gag were amplified, sequenced, and then clustered using phylogenetic analysis by mega software with maximum-likelihood. results: the quantity of hiv viral load by qrt-pcr (taqman) and cobas-amplicor monitor test had a very strong correlation (r = 0.881, p < 0.0001). a significant negative correlation was also found between cd4+ cell count and cobas-amplicor (r = -0.41, p = 0.06). a significant negative correlation was also found between cd4+ cell count and cobas-amplicor (r = -0.41, p = 0.06) with hiv monitor test results (r = -0.41, p = 0.06). the phylogenetic analysis for p17 regions in gag and c2-v5 in env genes showed that all subjects had ad genotype. the co-infection of the hiv subjects with hbv, hcv, and htlv-1 was 75%, 75%, and 15%, respectively. a direct correlation was observed between cd8+ and hiv-htlv-1 co-infection. conclusions: the results showed that hiv crf35-ad, (m group) is more frequent in the northeast of iran, and both real-time quantification methods were reliable for monitoring the hiv-1 viral load. in addition, the transmission rate of htlv-1 is lower than hbv and hcv among drug abusers.