NOVEL REPLICATION COMPETENT HUMAN IMMUNODEFICIENCY VIRUS TYPE 2 (HIV-2) PROVIRAL CLONE DESIGNATED HIV-2KR

摘要

A full-length infectious molecular clone, designated HIV-K, was obtained froma recombinant bacteriophage library constructed from HI-2PIE-infected MOLT-4/8genomic DNA. Nucleotide sequence analysis of this clone demonstrated that therev coding region extends for nearly 69 amino acid residues past the end ofmost other HIV-2/SIV rev genes. In addition, the long terminal repeat (LTR)contains a deletion of 9-10 bp, depending upon the nucleotide sequencealignment parameters, upstream from the SpI binding sites. This deletion isnot present in other HIV-2/SIV isolates and is not similar to previouslydisclosed NFkB duplications in this region. The HIV-2KR LTR displays higherlevels of basal transcriptional acitivty as compared to prototypical HIV-2isolates. HIV-2KR is capable of infecting macaque peripheral blood lymphocytes(PBMCs) in vitro and produces a productive and persistant, albeit attenuated,infection in Macacca nemestrina. These proviral constructs are useful, interalia, for the generation of in vitro diagnostic reagents, cell transcuctionvectors, and the generation of HIV-2 based packaging cell lines.