Abstract
The moment in history when subtypes of the human immunodeficiency virus HIV-1 became distinguishable is hotly debated1,2. Zhu et al.3 have provided a unique HIV-1 sequence from 1959, known as ZR59. Based on the position of ZR59 in phylogenetic trees and its distance from the common node of the viral B/D/F-subtype lineages, they suggest that subtypes B and D have evolved from a single introduction “not long before 1959”, and that HIV-1 group M viruses probably shared a common ancestor “in the 1940s or the early 1950s”. Here we caution against such precise dating of these evolutionary events.
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Goudsmit, J., Lukashov, V. Dating the origin of HIV-1 subtypes. Nature 400, 325–326 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1038/22454
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/22454
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