ABSTRACT
This chapter presents plurality in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) genetics. The HIV–1 and HIV–2 proteases differ by a little more, 52%. No one would doubt the considerable differences in design, metabolism, and lifestyle separating us and chickens. Many attempts have been made to find out whether HIV, or other viruses, escape specific immune responses by ongoing mutation. Despite a genomic mutation rate some 3–5 fold greater than HIV, there is no data indicating that, de novo, influenza A variation is necessary to sustain the infection. HIV-1 envelope protein variation is approaching 30–40%. Intrapatient variation for the same region can approach 10% within ten years or so. Viruses from no two patients are strictly alike. The generation times of the two are vastly different, ~1 day for HIV and ~25 years for man. Normalizing for this yields a 100–500-fold higher mutation fixation rate per generation for HIV with respect to humans.
