Journal of General Virology

Human immunodeficiency virus type 2

Jacqueline D. Reeves and Robert W. Doms

Department of Microbiology, University of Pennsylvania, 301 Johnson Pavilion, 3610 Hamilton Walk, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA

The AIDS pandemic continues to spread unchecked in many parts of the world, with greater than 34 million individuals currently infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). While most infections are due to HIV type 1 (HIV-1) strains, HIV-2 represents a significant minority of all HIV infections in some countries, such as Guinea-Bissau and Portugal. While similar in many ways, there are important differences between HIV-1 and HIV-2 that provide insights into virus evolution, tropism and pathogenesis. Major differences include reduced pathogenicity of HIV-2 relative to HIV-1, enhanced immune control of HIV-2 infection and often some degree of CD4-independence. This review discusses the origin of HIV-2 and its relationship to simian immunodeficiency virus and HIV-1, its epidemiology, its pathogenic potential and how its Env protein interacts with cell surface receptors to mediate virus infection.

Click here for full text HTML

JGV Direct table of contents

© 2002 SGM

This article is now available in the June 2002 print issue of JGV (vol. 83, 1253–1265). The complete issue of the journal may be seen in electronic form on JGV Online.