Replicative fitness and pathogenicity of primate lentiviruses in lymphoid tissue, primary human and chimpanzee cells: relation to possible jumps to humans.

BACKGROUND: Simian immunodeficiency viruses (SIV) have been jumping between non-human primates in West/Central Africa for thousands of years and yet, the HIV-1 epidemic only originated from a primate lentivirus over 100 years ago. METHODS: This study examined the replicative fitness, transmission, restriction, and cytopathogenicity of 22 primate lentiviruses in primary human lymphoid tissue and both primary human and chimpanzee peripheral blood mononuclear cells. FINDINGS: Pairwise competitions revealed that SIV from chimpanzees (cpz) had the highest replicative fitness in human or chimpanzee peripheral blood mononuclear cells, even higher fitness than HIV-1 group M strains responsible for worldwide epidemic. The SIV strains belonging to the "HIV-2 lineage" (including SIVsmm, SIVmac, SIVagm) had the lowest replicative fitness. SIVcpz strains were less inhibited by human restriction factors than the "HIV-2 lineage" strains. SIVcpz efficiently replicated in human tonsillar tissue but did not deplete CD4+ T-cells, consistent with the slow or nonpathogenic disease observed in most chimpanzees. In contrast, HIV-1 isolates and SIV of the HIV-2 lineage were pathogenic to the human tonsillar tissue, almost independent of the level of virus replication. INTERPRETATION: Of all primate lentiviruses, SIV from chimpanzees appears most capable of infecting and replicating in humans, establishing HIV-1. SIV from other Old World monkeys, e.g. the progenitor of HIV-2, replicate slowly in humans due in part to restriction factors. Nonetheless, many of these SIV strains were more pathogenic than SIVcpz. Either SIVcpz evolved into a more pathogenic virus while in humans or a rare SIVcpz, possibly extinct in chimpanzees, was pathogenic immediately following the jump into human. FUNDING: Support for this study to E.J.A. was provided by the NIH/NIAID R01 AI49170 and CIHR project grant 385787. Infrastructure support was provided by the NIH CFAR AI36219 and Canadian CFI/Ontario ORF 36287. Efforts of J.A.B. and N.J.H. was provided by NIH AI099473 and for D.H.C., by VA and NIH AI AI080313.

Dendritic Cells Enhance HIV Infection of Memory CD4(+) T Cells in Human Lymphoid Tissues.

Dendritic cells (DCs) play a key role in controlling infections by coordinating innate and adaptive immune responses to invading pathogens. Paradoxically, DCs can increase HIV-1 dissemination in vitro by binding and transferring infectious virions to CD4(+) T cells, a process called transinfection. Transinfection has been well characterized in cultured cell lines and circulating primary T cells, but it is unknown whether DCs enhance infection of CD4(+) T cells in vivo. In untreated HIV infection, massive CD4(+) T-cell infection and depletion occur in secondary lymphoid tissues long before decline is evident in the peripheral circulation. To study the role of DCs in HIV infection of lymphoid tissues, we utilized human tonsil tissues, cultured either as tissue blocks or as aggregate suspension cultures, in single-round infection experiments. In these experiments, addition of monocyte-derived DCs (MDDCs) to the cultures increased T-cell infection, particularly in CD4(+) T cells expressing lower levels of HLA-DR. Subset analysis demonstrated that MDDCs increased HIV-1 infection of central and effector memory T-cell populations. Depletion of endogenous myeloid DCs (myDCs) from the cultures decreased memory T-cell infection, and readdition of MDDCs restored infection to predepletion levels. Using an HIV-1 fusion assay, we found that MDDCs equally increased HIV delivery into naïve, central, and effector memory T cells in the cultures, whereas predepletion of myDCs reduced fusion into memory T cells. Together, these data suggest that resident myDCs facilitate memory T-cell infection in lymphoid tissues, implicating DC-mediated transinfection in driving HIV dissemination within these tissues in untreated HIV/AIDS.

Similar replicative fitness is shared by the subtype B and unique BF recombinant HIV-1 isolates that dominate the epidemic in Argentina.

The HIV-1 epidemic in South America is dominated by pure subtypes (mostly B and C) and more than 7 BF and BC recombinant forms. In Argentina, circulating recombinant forms (CRFs) comprised of subtypes B and F make up more than 50% of HIV infections. For this study, 28 HIV-1 primary isolates were obtained from patients in Buenos Aires, Argentina and initially classified into subtype B (n = 9, 32.1%), C (n = 1, 3.6%), and CRFs (n = 18, 64.3%) using partial pol and vpu-env sequences, which proved to be inconsistent and inaccurate for these phylogenetic analyses. Near full length genome sequences of these primary HIV-1 isolates revealed that nearly all intersubtype BF recombination sites were unique and countered previous "CRF" B/F classifications. The majority of these Argentinean HIV-1 isolates were CCR5-using but 4 had a dual/mixed tropism as predicted by both phenotypic and genotypic assays. Comparison of the replicative fitness of these BF primary HIV-1 isolates to circulating B, F, and C HIV-1 using pairwise competitions in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) indicated a similarity in fitness of these BF recombinants to subtypes B and F HIV-1 (of the same co-receptor usage) whereas subtype C HIV-1 was significantly less fit than all as previously reported. These results suggest that the multitude of BF HIV-1 strains present within the Argentinean population do not appear to have gained replicative fitness following recent B and F recombination events.