Important note: Information in this article was accurate in December 2001. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.AIDSWEEKLY Plus; Monday, December 3, 2001
Michael Greer, Senior Medical Writer
NewsRx -- Researchers in the United States have developed a simian/human immunodeficiency virus (SHIV) variant for studying potential HIV vaccines tailored to African strains of the virus.
"Human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) subtype C is responsible for more than 56% of all infections in the HIV and AIDS pandemic," explained Thumbi Ndung'u and colleagues at the Harvard AIDS Institute and the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts. "It is the predominant subtype in the rapidly expanding epidemic in southern Africa."
Because their version of SHIV (SHIVMJ4) is based on HIV subtype C, it will provide an relatively accurate model for testing African vaccine candidates, Ndung'u and coworkers said.
The researchers derived SHIVMJ4 from a R5 strain found in southern Africa. SHIVMJ4 contains parts of three genes that code for key HIV proteins, with most of the env gene, part of the second exon of rev, and all of the tat second exon.
This SHIV variant demonstrated efficient replication in peripheral blood mononuclear cells from humans and a variety of macaques, study data showed. However, SHIVMJ4 was unable to replicate in cells from the human lymphocyte cell line CEMx174, Ndung'u and team noted.
SHIVMJ4 was highly infectious in rhesus macaques, who showed viral loads of up to 108 RNA copies/mL shortly after inoculation (Infectious simian/human immunodeficiency virus with human immunodeficiency virus type 1 subtype C from an African isolate: Rhesus macaque model, J Virol 2001 Dec;75(23):11417-25.
"We have established a CCR5-tropic SHIVMJ4/rhesus macaque model that may be useful in the studies of HIV-1 subtype C immunology and biology," Ndung'u and coauthors concluded, "and may also facilitate the evaluation of vaccines to control the spread of HIV-1 subtype C in southern Africa and elsewhere."
The corresponding author for this report is Max Essex, Immunology and Infectious Diseases Department, Harvard School of Public Health, 651 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, USA. E-mail: messex@hsph.harvard.edu.
Key points reported in this study include
This article was prepared by AIDS Weekly editors from staff and other reports.
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