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Low‐cytopathic infectious clone of human immunodeficiency virus type I (HIV‐I)
Author(s) -
Sakai Koji,
Ma Xiaoyue,
Volsky David J.
Publication year - 1988
Publication title -
febs letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.593
H-Index - 257
eISSN - 1873-3468
pISSN - 0014-5793
DOI - 10.1016/0014-5793(88)80491-5
Subject(s) - virology , human immunodeficiency virus (hiv) , clone (java method) , virus , biology , medicine , microbiology and biotechnology , genetics , gene
Single genotypic variants of HIV‐I, contained in a parental cytopathic HIV‐I isolate, were isolated by molecular cloning and propagated in susceptible cells. Two such HIV‐I clones, designated N1T‐E and N1T‐A, exhibited similar restriction endonuclease maps but strikingly different biological activities. Infection of T lymphocytes or monocytes by clone N1T‐E was characterized by slow kinetics and lack of significant cytopathic effects, but high reverse transcriptase activity levels in culture supernatants of chronically‐infected cells. Clone N1T‐A, like the parental HIV‐I isolate, exhibited fast kinetics of infection in T cells and monocytes and strong cytopathicity in these cells. Full characterization of the low‐cytopathic virus in comparison to the structurally similar cytopathic clone may facilitate the elucidation of the molecular basis of HIV cytopathogenicity.