HIV Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about HIV, including details on human immunodeficiency virus, testing, treatment, prevention, vaccines, aids.

Human chromosome 2 carries a gene required for production of infectious human immunodeficiency virus type 1.

Coskun AK, van Maanen M, Nguyen V, Sutton RE

Department of Molecular Virology and Microbiology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030, USA.

Human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV) replicates only in certain primate cells. In murine cells expressing cyclin T1, a posttranscriptional block exists such that small amounts of capsid and little infectious virus are released. This block is relieved in part by fusion with human cells. Here we have tested a panel of mouse-human somatic cell hybrids for production of infectious virus. Only those containing human chromosome 2 were permissive, which correlated with capsid production. The effect was specific to HIV in that release of murine leukemia virus was minimally affected by the presence of chromosome 2. Although expression of Vpu markedly increased capsid production in the absence of chromosome 2, it did not result in a corresponding increase in infectious HIV. The presence of chromosome 2 did not have consistent effects on the amount of unspliced viral RNA, whereas the amount of cell-associated Gag p55 was increased a fewfold. These results suggest that processing of HIV Gag can be corrected by one or more genes present on human chromosome 2 to allow production of infectious HIV from murine cells.

Published 15 March 2006 in J Virol, 80(7): 3406-15.
Full-text of this article is available online (may require subscription).

© 2004-2008 HIV Research Today. All Rights Reserved.