A pilot investigation of the association between HIV-1 Vpr amino acid sequence diversity and the tryptophan-kynurenine pathway as a potential mechanism for neurocognitive impairment.

"sequences are available in genbank under the accession numbers or621303- or621349."

"Declarations Ethics approval and consent to participateAll participants provided written informed consent, and their information was anonymized to the greatest extent possible. The study protocol received approval from the Health Research Ethics Committee of North-West University (NWU-HREC) in South Africa under the reference numbers NWU-00106-22-A, NWU-00106-22-A1, and this study NWU-00106-22-A1-01. Consent for publicationNot applicable. Competing interestsThe authors declare no competing interests. Competing interests The authors declare no competing interests."

"Funding MEW was funded by the NRF Thuthuka grant (TTK22031652) and Poliomyelitis Research Foundation (PRF) grant (23/84). LKA was funded by the NRF Postgraduate Scholarship (Grant UID number 140524) and PRF grant (23/24). Open access funding provided by North-West University."