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Journal of Virology, July 2000, p. 5836-5844, Vol. 74, No. 13
0022-538X/00/$04.00+0
Copyright © 2000, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.

The Intracytoplasmic Domain of the Env Transmembrane Protein Is a Locus for Attenuation of Simian Immunodeficiency Virus SIVmac in Rhesus Macaques

Barbara L. Shacklett,1,2,3 Claudia Jo Weber,2 Karen E. S. Shaw,2 Elise M. Keddie,2 Murray B. Gardner,2 Pierre Sonigo,3 and Paul A. Luciw2,*

Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center, New York, New York1; University of California, Davis, California2; and Institut Cochin de Génétique Moléculaire, Paris, France3

Received 30 December 1999/Accepted 31 March 2000

The human and simian immunodeficiency virus (HIV-1 and SIVmac) transmembrane proteins contain unusually long intracytoplasmic domains (ICD-TM). These domains are suggested to play a role in envelope fusogenicity, interaction with the viral matrix protein during assembly, viral infectivity, binding of intracellular calmodulin, disruption of membranes, and induction of apoptosis. Here we describe a novel mutant virus, SIVmac-M4, containing multiple mutations in the coding region for the ICD-TM of pathogenic molecular clone SIVmac239. Parental SIVmac239-Nef+ produces high-level persistent viremia and simian AIDS in both juvenile and newborn rhesus macaques. The ICD-TM region of SIVmac-M4 contains three stop codons, a +1 frameshift, and mutation of three highly conserved, charged residues in the conserved C-terminal alpha-helix referred to as lentivirus lytic peptide 1 (LLP-1). Overlapping reading frames for tat, rev, and nef are not affected by these changes. In this study, four juvenile macaques received SIVmac-M4 by intravenous injection. Plasma viremia, as measured by branched-DNA (bDNA) assay, reached a peak at 2 weeks postinoculation but dropped to below detectable levels by 12 weeks. At over 1.5 years postinoculation, all four juvenile macaques remain healthy and asymptomatic. In a subsequent experiment, four neonatal rhesus macaques were given SIVmac-M4 intravenously. These animals exhibited high levels of viremia in the acute phase (2 weeks postinoculation) but are showing a relatively low viral load in the chronic phase of infection, with no clinical signs of disease for 1 year. These findings demonstrated that the intracytoplasmic domain of the transmembrane Env (Env-TM) is a locus for attenuation in rhesus macaques.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Center for Comparative Medicine, University of California Davis, Davis, CA 95616. Phone: (530) 752-3430. Fax: (530) 752-4548. E-mail: paluciw{at}ucdavis.edu.

Journal of Virology, July 2000, p. 5836-5844, Vol. 74, No. 13
0022-538X/00/$04.00+0
Copyright © 2000, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.


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