Prevalence and clinical implications of insertions in the HIV-1 p6Gag N-terminal region in drug-naive individuals initiating antiretroviral therapy

We assessed the prevalence and clinical impact of insertions within the HIV-1 p6 Gag proline-rich (PTAP) region on initial antiretroviral therapy response in 461 HIV-infected, drug-naive individuals initiating therapy in British Columbia, Canada between June 1996 and August 1998. HIV p6 Gag insertions were detected by nested RT-PCR of extracted patient plasma followed by direct DNA sequencing. Insertions were observed in 70 of 423 successfully genotyped samples (16.5%). HIV p6 Gag insertions were significantly associated with a lower baseline CD4 cell count (P«0.05) and the presence of basic amino acids at key positions in the HIV envelope V3 loop linked to a syncytium-inducing phenotype (P«0.05). After adjusting for baseline factors, no effect of HIV p6 Gag insertions was observed on time to virological success (pVL ≤500 copies/ml), virological failure (subsequent confirmed pVL ≥500 copies/ml) or immunological failure (confirmed CD4 count below baseline), as evaluated by Kaplan-Meier methods and Cox proportional hazard regression (P>0.1). The data suggest that HIV p6 Gag insertions are not exclusively related to drug resistance and may not influence response to antiretroviral therapy, but may be linked to sequence variations in the HIV envelope.