Inferring HIV-1 transmission networks and sources of epidemic spread in Africa with deep-sequence phylogenetic analysis

PANGEA Consortium and Rakai Health Sciences Program

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

13 Scopus citations

Abstract

To prevent new infections with human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) in sub-Saharan Africa, UNAIDS recommends targeting interventions to populations that are at high risk of acquiring and passing on the virus. Yet it is often unclear who and where these ‘source’ populations are. Here we demonstrate how viral deep-sequencing can be used to reconstruct HIV-1 transmission networks and to infer the direction of transmission in these networks. We are able to deep-sequence virus from a large population-based sample of infected individuals in Rakai District, Uganda, reconstruct partial transmission networks, and infer the direction of transmission within them at an estimated error rate of 16.3% [8.8–28.3%]. With this error rate, deep-sequence phylogenetics cannot be used against individuals in legal contexts, but is sufficiently low for population-level inferences into the sources of epidemic spread. The technique presents new opportunities for characterizing source populations and for targeting of HIV-1 prevention interventions in Africa.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number1411
JournalNature communications
Volume10
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 1 2019

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Physics and Astronomy
  • General Chemistry
  • General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology

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