Molecular Epidemiology of HIV-1 virus in Puerto Rico: Novel Cases of HIV-1 Subtype C, D and CRF-24BG

Human immunodeficiency virus-1 (HIV-1) subtype B virus is the most prevalent subtype in Puerto Rico (PR), accounting for about 90% of infection in the island. Recently, other subtypes and circulating recombinant forms (CRF) including F (12_BF), A (01_BF), and CRF-39 BF-like have been identified. The purpose of this study is to assess the distribution of drug resistance mutations and subtypes in PR. A total of 846 nucleotide sequences from the period comprising 2013 through 2017 were obtained from our “HIV Genotyping” test file. Phylogenetic and molecular epidemiology analyses were performed to evaluate the evolutionary dynamics and prevalence of drug resistance mutations. According to our results, we detected a decrease in the prevalence of protease inhibitor (PI), nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NRTI), and non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NNRTI) resistance mutations over time. In addition, we also detected recombinant forms and, for the first time, identified subtypes C, D and ...