BIOLOGY OF HUMAN AIDS RETROVIRUS

该项目继续侧重于研究艾滋病毒的细胞嗜性 感染 我们的实验室开发了一种灵敏的定量分析方法 用CD4阳性的HeLa细胞来检测HIV感染。 大多数，但不是全部， 分离物感染这些细胞。 我们最近的实验表明， 阻断非允许性分离株的感染是由于缺乏 病毒进入靶细胞。 利用感染性分子HIV克隆 合成了不同细胞嗜性的重组HIV克隆， 发现病毒V3区的120个碱基对片段 envelope基因对细胞嗜性有重要影响。 有趣的是， 用T细胞高效感染CD4阳性HeLa细胞， 嗜淋巴细胞病毒株，但不感染嗜巨噬细胞病毒 菌株 因此，CD4阳性HeLa细胞似乎对T细胞具有选择性。 嗜性HIV毒株。 未来的研究旨在检查细胞 嗜性和V3序列的新鲜HIV分离株从患者， 确定这些发现的一般相关性。

This project has continued to focus on studies of cell tropism of HIV infection. Our laboratory has developed a sensitive quantitative assay for HIV infection using CD4-positive HeLa cells. Most, but not all, HIV isolates infect these cells. Our recent experiments demonstrated that the block in infection by the nonpermissive isolates was due to lack of viral entry into the target cells. Using infectious molecular HIV clones of differing cell tropism recombinant HIV clones were synthesized, and it was found that a 120 base pair segment of V3 region of the viral envelope gene had a major influence on cell tropism. Interestingly, CD4-positive HeLa cells were infected at high efficiency by T lymphotropic virus strains, but were not infected by macrophage tropic strains. Thus, CD4-positive HeLa cells appear to be selective for T cell tropic HIV strains. Future studies are aimed at examining the cell tropism and V3 sequences of fresh HIV isolates from patients to determine the general relevance of these findings.