Isolation and Biological Characterization of An Infectious Molecular Clone of HIV-1 CRF08_BC from China

摘要

We isolated the first HIV-1 infectious molecular clone (IMC) (designated as OOCN-HH040.NX22) for CRF08_BC that is responsible for IDU epidemic in southeastern China. OOCN-HH040.NX22 replicated to high titers in PBMCs and utilized only CCR5 as a coreceptor for entry. OOCN-HH040.NX22 showed the identical recombinant structure with CRF08_BC reference strain. A potential sequence signature unique to CRF08_BC was observed in the enhancer region of LTR. OOCN-HH040.NX22 will be a useful tool to delineate the biological and virological properties of CRF08_BC and may also be used in design for vaccine candidates to limit the epidemic in southeastern China.