Differences in early virus loads with different phenotypic variants of HIV-1 and SIV(cpz) in chimpanzees.
OBJECTIVE
A comparative study of the replication kinetics of different HIV-1 variants (including SIV(cpz)) was undertaken to determine which viral characteristics were associated with sustained plasma viraemia in chimpanzees.


METHODS
Plasma samples from chimpanzees infected with six different HIV-1 clade B isolates were compared with plasma samples from SIV(cpz-ant)-infected chimpanzees.


METHODS
A pan-clade quantitative competitive reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction assay was developed based on conserved primer sequences recognizing M, N and O human lentiviruses as well as different SIV(cpz) isolates.


RESULTS
Important differences between early kinetics in the human lentivirus isolates as well as compared with the chimpanzee isolate SIV(cpz-ant) were observed. R5-dependent non-syncytium-inducing (NSI) isolates (5016, Ba-L, SIV(cpz)) were found to have relatively higher viral loads than the syncytium-inducing (SI), X4-dependent primary (SF2), T cell-adapted (IIIB) or X4/R5 (Han2, DH12) SI primary isolates.


CONCLUSIONS
Infection of chimpanzees with NSI R5-utilizing isolates correlated with persistent viraemia (approximately 10(4) RNA equivalents/ml) in contrast to transient viraemia observed after infection with SI X4-utilizing isolates.
ten Haaft
P
P
Department of Virology, Biomedical Primate Research Centre, Rijswijk, the Netherlands.
Murthy
K
K
Salas
M
M
McClure
H
H
Dubbes
R
R
Koornstra
W
W
Niphuis
H
H
Davis
D
D
van der Groen
G
G
Heeney
J
J
D000818:Animals; D018420:Ape Diseases / Q000821:virology*; D015726:Giant Cells / Q000502:physiology; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000821:virology*; D015497:HIV-1 / Q000145:classification / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D002679:Pan troglodytes; D012367:RNA, Viral / Q000097:blood; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; D016097:Simian Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome / Q000821:virology*; D015302:Simian Immunodeficiency Virus / Q000145:classification / Q000502:physiology*; D019562:Viral Load
D012367:RNA, Viral