Phylogenetic study of SIVcpz MT145 virus based on proteome and genome analysis

Molecular phylogenetic studies were performed by the alignment of protein/nucleotide sequences of human/simian immunodeficiency virus (HIV/SIV), followed by the construction of phylograms according to maximum likelihood method. We aimed to investigate the evolutionary relationship of the recombinant SIVcpzMT145, to other well-known SIVcpz and HIV-1 viruses. Expectedly, MT145 follows the rule of feasible recombination occurrence in SIVcpz clade as to it consists several recombinations in different genome sites including gag, Pol, and Env region. Phylograms indicated that in Pol gene, MT145 is more related to GAB1 and CAM13 SIVs; while in Env gene, it has a closed relationship to GAB2 SIV. Moreover, MT145 differs from other SIVcpzPtt strains in the Env V3 loop having the QIGPAMT motif (same as HIV-1N), instead of usual QIGPGMT motif in these strains. Data indicated that the Env proteins contain considerable amino acid sequence diversification. Overall, this study suggests that, parts of the Gag and especially Vpu/Env gene sequences of SIVcpzMT145 were derived from an unknown SIVcpz lineage ancestral to HIV-1 group M/MB66.