Phylogenetic anaysis and molecular evolution of highly variable viruses: coinfections, host-pathogene interactions

The main objectives of this research are to analyze parameters of molecular evolution in highly variable viruses - HIV and coinfecting viruses, as well as hantaviruses, through methods of phylogenetic anaysis. We will use dense sampling to determine detailed distribution of HIV subtypes among patients in Serbia and the prevalent pattern of resistance mutations among the treated and treatment naive population. HIV epidemic will be explored through generation of new sequence data and analysis of diversity, phylogeny and viral phylogeography, taking also into account common viral coinfections. This study will also provide preliminary data on hantaviruses in circulation, hantaviral ecology and diseases. We will explore the presence of hantaviruses among animal hosts (rodent and insectivore) from different locations in Serbia, by using universal hantavirus PCR protocol and sequencing. Phylogeny and molecular evolution analysis have increasingly gained the ability to act as a link between basic science, clinical medicine and public health in virology. Rapidly evolving viruses are important emerging pathogens, such as HIV and hantaviruses. Molecular data obtained through this study, in conjuction with the detailed demographic, clinical, ecological data will be used to build integrated relevant databases for different studied pathogens. These data will provide an important resource enabling to perform complex phylogenetic, phylogeographic and phylodynamic analyses.