Contamination of genomic databases by HIV-1 and its possible consequences. A study in Bioinformatics.

Abstract

The bioinformatics Basic Local Alignment Search Tools (BLASTN and TBLASTN) were used to search public databases for nucleic acid (NA) and amino acid (AA) sequences identical or similar to HIV-1 DNA and proteins. Several significant alignments were detected in a variety of non-HIV-1 taxa and other sources deposited in public genomic and protein repositories. Homologies between a number of HIV-1 proteins and those of Candida, Cryptococcus and Schistosoma mansoni are of uncertain significance and suggest the need for further analyses. The overwhelmingly likely cause for these data is contamination.