Near Full-Length Genome Identification of a Novel HIV-1 Recombinant Form (CRF01_AE/CRF07_BC) in Zhejiang, China

CRF01_AE and CRF07_BC are the two major circulating recombinant forms (CRFs) in China. Furthermore, many kinds of unique recombinant forms (URFs) between CRF01_AE and CRF07_BC were recently identified in China. Here we detected a novel recombinant of CRF07_BC/CRF01_AE, whose genome structure is distinctly different from other URFs reported before. The phylogenetic analysis of the near full-length sequence of 15zj032 reveals that three regions of CRF01_AE insert into the CRF07_BC backbone. Recently, the continued emergence of novel URFs implies that super infections of different subtypes of HIV-1 are common in China and should be given enough importance.