Viruses (Sep 2012)

Construction of a High Titer Infectious HIV-1 Subtype C Proviral Clone from South Africa

  • Jochen Bodem,
  • Stefanie Bock,
  • Anita Schuch,
  • Rebecca Moschall,
  • Eva-Maria Schrom,
  • Juliane Zahn,
  • Christian Reuter,
  • Graeme B. Jacobs,
  • Thomas Kerkau,
  • Axel Rethwilm,
  • Susan Engelbrecht,
  • Wolfgang Preiser

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/v4091830
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 4, no. 9
pp. 1830 – 1843

Abstract

Read online

The Human Immunodeficiency Virus type 1 (HIV-1) subtype C is currently the predominant subtype worldwide. Cell culture studies of Sub-Saharan African subtype C proviral plasmids are hampered by the low replication capacity of the resulting viruses, although viral loads in subtype C infected patients are as high as those from patients with subtype B. Here, we describe the sequencing and construction of a new HIV-1 subtype C proviral clone (pZAC), replicating more than one order of magnitude better than the previous subtype C plasmids. We identify the env-region for being the determinant for the higher viral titers and the pZAC Env to be M-tropic. This higher replication capacity does not lead to a higher cytotoxicity compared to previously described subtype C viruses. In addition, the pZAC Vpu is also shown to be able to down-regulate CD4, but fails to fully counteract CD317.

Keywords