title: Evidence that ecotropic murine leukemia virus contamination in TZM-bl cells does not affect the outcome of neutralizing antibody assays with human immunodeficiency virus type 1.
abstract: The TZM-bl cell line that is commonly used to assess neutralizing antibodies against human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) was recently reported to be contaminated with an ecotropic murine leukemia virus (MLV) (Y. Takeuchi, M. O. McClure, and M. Pizzato, J. Virol. 82:12585-12588, 2008), raising questions about the validity of results obtained with this cell line. Here we confirm this observation and show that HIV-1 neutralization assays performed with a variety of serologic reagents in a similar cell line that does not harbor MLV yield results that are equivalent to those obtained in TZM-bl cells. We conclude that MLV contamination has no measurable effect on HIV-1 neutralization when TZM-bl cells are used as targets for infection.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Oregon Health Sciences University, Portland, 97201, USA.
authors.forename: Emily J
authors.initials: EJ
authors.lastname: Platt
authors.forename: Miroslawa
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bilska
authors.forename: Susan L
authors.initials: SL
authors.lastname: Kozak
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Kabat
authors.forename: David C
authors.initials: DC
authors.lastname: Montefiori
mesh_terms: D002460:Cell Line / Q000276:immunology / Q000821:virology*; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000276:immunology* / Q000821:virology; D015497:HIV-1 / Q000737:chemistry / Q000276:immunology*; D006801:Humans; D009052:Leukemia Virus, Murine; D009500:Neutralization Tests; D013048:Specimen Handling