Codon pairs of the HIV-1 vif gene correlate with CD4+ T cell count.

Background: The human APOBEC3G (A3G) protein activity is associated with innate immunity against HIV-1 by inducing high rates of guanosines to adenosines (G-to-A) mutations (viz., hypermutation) in the viral DNA. If hypermutation is not enough to disrupt the reading frames of viral genes, it may likely increase the HIV-1 diversity.