AIDSWEEKLY Plus; Monday, May 30, 2005
Staff Medical Writers

According to a recently published report from the United States, "We created a model of HIV-1 infection of conventional mice for investigation of viral replication, control, and pathogenesis.

"To target HIV-1 to mice, the coding region of gp120 in HIV-1/NL4-3 was replaced with that of gp80 from ecotropic murine leukemia virus, a retrovirus that infects only rodents."

"The resulting chimeric virus construct, EcoHIV, productively infected murine lymphocytes, but not human lymphocytes, in culture.

"Adult, immunocompetent mice were readily susceptible to infection by a single inoculation of EcoHIV as shown by detection of virus in splenic lymphocytes, peritoneal macrophages, and the brain," wrote M.J. Potash and colleagues at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center in New York.

"The virus produced in animals was infectious, as shown by passage in culture, and immunogenic, as shown by induction of antibodies to HIV-1 Gag and Tat," reported investigators.

"A second chimeric virus based on clade D HIV-1/NDK was also highly infectious in mice; it was detected in both spleen and brain 3 weeks after tail vein inoculation," continued the authors, "and it induced expression of infection response genes, MCP-1, STAT1, IL-1 beta, and complement component C3, in brain tissue as determined by quantitative real-time PCR."

Potash concluded, "EcoHIV infection of mice forms a useful model of HIV-1 infection of human beings for convenient and safe investigation of HIV-1 therapy, vaccines, and potentially pathogenesis."

Potash and colleagues published their study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (A mouse model for study of systemic HIV-1 infection, antiviral immune responses, and neuroinvasiveness. Proc Nat Acad Sci USA, 2005;102(10):3760-3765).

For additional information, contact M.J. Potash, Columbia University, St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center, Med Center, Division Molecular Virology, 432 W 58th St., New York, NY 10019, USA.

The publisher's contact information for the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America is: National Academy Sciences, 2101 Constitution Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20418, USA.

Keywords: New York, New York, United States, HIV/AIDS, EcoHIV Murine Model, Vaccine Development, Viral Replication, Viral Pathogenesis.

This article was prepared by AIDS Weekly editors from staff and other reports.

Reference

Potash MJ, Chao W, Bentsman G, et al., A mouse model for study of systemic HIV-1 infection, antiviral immune responses, and neuroinvasiveness, Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2005 Mar 8;102(10):3760-5.

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