Virus

About: Virus is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 136914 publications have been published within this topic receiving 5209107 citations. The topic is also known as: infectious agent & viruses.

Human immunodeficiency virus type 1 neutralization epitope with conserved architecture elicits early type-specific antibodies in experimentally infected chimpanzees

Abstract: Chimpanzees are susceptible to infection by divergent strains of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1), none of which cause clinical or immunological abnormalities. Chimpanzees were inoculated with one of four strains of HIV-1: human T-lymphotropic virus (HTLV) type IIIB, lymphadenopathy virus (LAV) type 1, HTLV type IIIRF, or an isolate from the brain of a patient with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. Within 6 months after inoculation with the closely related strains HTLV-IIIB or LAV-1, six chimpanzees developed serum antibodies to the C-terminal half (amino acids 288-467) of the HTLV-IIIB external envelope glycoprotein gp120. Sera from five of those chimpanzees had HTLV-IIIB cell-fusion-inhibiting antibody titers greater than or equal to 20 at that time, indicating that they neutralized the infecting strain of HIV-1 in vitro. No antibodies to the carboxyl terminus of HTLV-IIIB gp120 were observed in sera of chimpanzees inoculated with HTLV-IIIRF or with the brain-tissue strain, and those sera did not neutralize HTLV-IIIB. A rabbit immunized with the C-terminal portion of gp120 acquired neutralizing antibodies that bound to four domains of the HTLV-IIIB external envelope as analyzed by reactivity to 536 overlapping nonapeptides of gp120. One of these domains in the variable region V3, with the amino acid sequence IRIQRGPGRAFVTIG (amino acids 307-321), bound to all chimpanzee sera that neutralized HTLV-IIIB but not to the serum of the HTLV-IIIRF-inoculated chimpanzee that did not neutralize HTLV-IIIB. The HTLV-IIIRF sequence at the same location, ITKGPGRVIYA, was recognized by the serum of the HTLV-IIIRF-inoculated chimpanzee but not by any sera of the HTLV-IIIB-inoculated or LAV-1-inoculated chimpanzees. The HTLV-IIIB residues RIQR and AFV and the HTLV-IIIRF residues lysine and VIYA, flanking a highly conserved beta-turn (GPGR), appear to be critical for antibody binding and subsequent type-specific virus neutralization. This neutralization epitope, putatively consisting of a loop between two cysteine residues (amino acids 296 and 331) connected by a disulfide bond, is immunodominant in HIV-1-infected chimpanzees and induces antibodies restricted to the homologous viral strain.

Human immunodeficiency virus infection of cells arrested in the cell cycle.

Abstract: Cell proliferation is necessary for proviral integration and productive infection of most retroviruses. Nevertheless, the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) can infect non-dividing macrophages. This ability to grow in non-dividing cells is not specific to macrophages because, as we show here, CD4+ HeLa cells arrested at stage G2 of the cell cycle can be infected by HIV-1. Proliferation is necessary for these same cells to be infected by a murine retrovirus, MuLV. HIV-1 integrates into the arrested cell DNA and produces viral RNA and protein in a pattern similar to that in normal cells. In addition, our data suggest that the ability to infect non-dividing cells is due to one of the HIV-1 core virion proteins. HIV infection of non-dividing cells distinguishes lentiviruses from other retroviruses and is likely to be important in the natural history of HIV infection.

HIV-1 tat trans-activation requires the loop sequence within tar

Abstract: Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV-1) is the primary retroviral agent responsible for AIDS and related disorders worldwide. One of its identified gene products, tat protein, stimulates in trans the expression of all HIV-1 genes by several orders of magnitude1–7. Cells infected with HIV-1 require tat protein to produce virus, suggesting that trans-activation is crucial for viral replication8,9. The essential cis-acting site for trans-activation, termed tar, resides within the R region of the HIV-1 long terminal repeat (LTR), between −17 and +54 with respect to the initiation site of viral transcription10,11. It is striking that the RNA encoded between +1 and +59 has the potential to form an extensive stem-loop secondary structure which, as a portion of the untranslated leader RNA, would be common to all HIV-1 mRNAs 11,12. We now present the results of nucleotide substitution experiments which suggest that tat trans-activation requires presentation of the sequence +30CUGGG+34 in tar within the loop of a RNA hairpin structure.

Helper virus induced T cell lymphoma in nonhuman primates after retroviral mediated gene transfer.

Abstract: Moloney Murine Leukemia Virus (MoMuLV) causes T cell neoplasms in rodents but is not known to be a pathogen in primates. The core protein and enzyme genes of the MoMuLV genome together with an amphotropic envelope gene are utilized to engineer the cell lines that generate retroviral vectors for use in current human gene therapy applications. We developed a producer clone that generates a very high concentration of retroviral vector particles to optimize conditions for gene insertion into pluripotent hematopoietic stem cells. This producer cell line also generates a much lower concentration of replication-competent virus that arose through recombination. Stem cells from rhesus monkeys were purified by immunoselection with an anti-CD34 antibody, incubated in vitro for 80-86 h in the presence of retroviral vector particles with accompanying replication-competent virus and used to reconstitute recipients whose bone marrow had been ablated by total body irradiation. The retroviral vector genome was detected in circulating cells of five of eight transplant recipients of CD34+ cells and in the circulating cells of two recipients of infected, unfractionated bone marrow mononuclear cells. Three recipients of CD34+ cells had a productive infection with replication-competent virus. Six or seven mo after transplantation, each of these animals developed a rapidly progressive T cell neoplasm involving the thymus, lymph nodes, liver, spleen, and bone marrow. Lymphoma cells contained 10-50 copies of the replication-competent virus, but lacked the retroviral vector genome. We conclude that replication-competent viruses arising from producer cells making retroviral vectors can be pathogenic in primates, which underscores the importance of carefully screening retroviral producer clones used in human trials to exclude contamination with replication-competent virus.

Macrophage and T cell-line tropisms of HIV-1 are determined by specific regions of the envelope gp120 gene.

Abstract: Strains of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) display a high degree of biological heterogeneity which may be linked to certain clinical manifestation of AIDS. They vary in their ability to infect different cell types, to replicate rapidly and to high titre in culture, to down-modulate the CD4 receptor, and to cause cytopathic changes in infected cells. Some of these in vitro properties correlate with pathogenicity of the virus in vivo. To map the viral determinants of the cellular host range of HIV-1, recombinant viruses were generated between biologically active molecular clones of HIV-1 isolates showing differences in infection of primary peripheral blood macrophages and established T-cell lines. We report here that a specific region of the envelope gp120 gene representing 159 amino-acid residues of glycoprotein gp120 seems to determine macrophage tropism, whereas an overlapping region representing 321 amino-acid residues determines T cell-line tropism. These studies provide a basis for relating functional domains of the HIV-1 env gene to pathogenic potential.