Sera from infected
injection drug users (IDU) have shown to have
antibodies against synthetic
human immunodeficiency virus-1 (
HIV-1) envelope
peptides more frequently. In this study, reactivity of 48 IDU
plasma were compared to 60
plasmas obtained from sexually infected individuals (S). The overall reactivity of
plasma from IDU compared to S was higher, and the reactivity titers were much higher for IDU
plasma than S. IDU
plasma also showed a broader
antibody response. The higher reactivity titers were observed mainly for the gp41
immunodominant epitope and V3
peptides corresponding to the
consensus sequences of
HIV-1 subtypes/variants prevalent in
Brazil (B, F, C) indicating the
specificity in the higher
immune response of IDU