In recent years, homosexual contact has been the most frequent route of human immunodeficiency virus type one (HIV-1) transmission in Hebei, China. The number of circulating recombinant forms (CRFs) and unique recombinant forms found in this key population were more and more. In this study, we identified a novel HIV-1 second-generation recombinant form originated from CRF68_01B and CRF01_AE among men who have sex with men (MSM) through the phylogenetic and recombinant breakpoints analyses based on the near full-length genome. Both CRF68_01B and CRF01_AE were circulating in the Hebei province of China, and this MSM was diagnosed as the recent HIV-1 infection in fact. The result reminds that we should constantly monitor HIV-1 diversity in Hebei and take further effective to control the recombination of not only HIV-1 major strains but also minor strains.
Keywords: CRF01_AE; CRF68_01B; HIV-1; subtype A1.