Journal of Virology, August 2001, p. 6776-6785, Vol. 75, No. 15
0022-538X/01/$04.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/JVI.75.15.6776-6785.2001
Copyright © 2001, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
Department of Genetics,1 Department of Surgery,2 Department of Medicine,3 and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute,4 Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina 27710
Received 27 February 2001/Accepted 23 April 2001
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ABSTRACT |
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Laboratory isolates of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) that utilize CXCR4 as a coreceptor infect primary human macrophages inefficiently even though these express a low but detectable level of cell surface CXCR4. In contrast, infection of primary macrophages by primary CXCR4-tropic HIV-1 isolates is readily detectable. Here, we provide evidence suggesting that this difference in cell tropism results from a higher requirement for cell surface CXCR4 for infection by laboratory HIV-1 isolates. Transfected COS7 cells that express a high level of CD4 but a low level of CXCR4 were infected significantly more efficiently by two primary CXCR4-tropic HIV-1 isolates compared to the prototypic laboratory HIV-1 isolate IIIB. More importantly, overexpression of either wild-type or signaling-defective CXCR4 on primary macrophages dramatically enhanced the efficiency of infection by the laboratory HIV-1 isolate yet only modestly enhanced infection by either primary CXCR4-tropic virus. Overexpression of CD4 had, in contrast, only a limited effect on macrophage infection by the laboratory HIV-1, although infection by the primary isolates was markedly enhanced. We therefore conclude that the laboratory CXCR4-tropic HIV-1 isolate exhibits a significantly higher CXCR4 requirement for efficient infection than do the primary CXCR4-tropic isolates and that this difference can explain the poor ability of the laboratory HIV-1 isolate to replicate in primary macrophages. More generally, we propose that the cell tropisms displayed by different strains of HIV-1 in culture can largely be explained on the basis of differential requirements for cell surface CD4 and/or coreceptor expression levels.
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INTRODUCTION |
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Research into the molecular biology of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) has generally used proviral clones derived from laboratory T-cell line-adapted (TCLA) strains of HIV-1, due to the considerable practical advantage of being able to propagate these viruses in CD4+ T-cell lines. However, it has been known for some time that TCLA variants of HIV-1 differ from primary (PR) isolates in a number of key, and related, ways (reviewed in references 11 and 33). Specifically, TCLA isolates generally differ from PR isolates not only in their ability to grow in transformed CD4+ T-cell lines but also in their inability to infect primary macrophages and their increased sensitivity to neutralization by soluble CD4 (sCD4) and to certain monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) (9, 27, 29, 36, 42). These differences have been shown to map to the viral env gene and particularly to the env V3 loop region (20, 21, 28, 37).
The discovery that HIV-1 infection requires not only the CD4 receptor but also a coreceptor molecule (2, 7, 10, 14, 16) provided a partial explanation for these phenotypic differences. Specifically, it was discovered that TCLA isolates use CXCR4 as a coreceptor (X4 isolates), while the large majority of PR isolates utilize CCR5 (R5 isolates). The finding that T-cell lines generally do not express CCR5 appeared to clarify why these cells fail to support the replication of PR isolates. However, coreceptor utilization did not clearly explain why TCLA isolates fail to replicate on primary macrophages, as these CD4+ cells express low but readily detectable levels of cell surface CXCR4 (24, 44). Subsequently, several PR-X4 isolates have been obtained and these isolates, like PR-R5 isolates, generally replicate poorly on transformed T-cell lines yet can infect primary macrophages (29, 38, 39, 43).
Efforts to understand the inability of PR-X4 isolates to grow effectively in T-cell lines led to the demonstration that overexpression of CD4 in these cells could rescue PR-X4 replication (29). It has also been demonstrated that PR isolates differ from TCLA isolates in that the latter have a significantly higher affinity for CD4 and, concomitantly, that adaptation of PR isolates to growth on T-cell lines involves the acquisition of a significantly higher affinity for CD4 (22).
Based on these results, it seemed possible that TCLA isolates had lost the ability to infect macrophages due to a reduced affinity for the cell surface CXCR4 coreceptor. However, several other hypotheses to explain this phenomenon have been proposed. For example, it has been demonstrated that binding of the HIV-1 Env protein to CXCR4 can activate ionic signaling responses in primary macrophages in culture (25). This Env-induced signaling has been proposed to be potentially critical for productive infection of macrophages by HIV-1, perhaps acting at a step in the viral life cycle that occurs after entry (3, 25, 35, 40). Consistent with this model, Env proteins from TCLA isolates were found to differ from PR Env proteins in that they failed to induce mobilization of intracellular calcium in treated macrophages (3). Conversely, it has also been suggested that CXCR4 may undergo distinct posttranslational processing in macrophages that precludes its use as a coreceptor by TCLA HIV-1 isolates (23).
In this study, we analyzed the ability of the prototypic TCLA-X4 HIV-1 isolate IIIB and two novel PR-X4 isolates to infect primary macrophages and also other cells that express low levels of either CD4 or CXCR4. We show that this TCLA-X4 isolate differs from the PR-X4 isolates in that it is significantly more efficient at infecting cells with low CD4 levels yet significantly less effective at infecting cells with low cell surface CXCR4. Consistent with the hypothesis that low CXCR4 levels on primary macrophages are a key determinant of TCLA HIV-1 infection efficiency, we show that overexpression of wild-type CXCR4 or of signaling-defective CXCR4 mutants effectively rescues primary macrophage infection by this TCLA-X4 isolate.
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MATERIALS AND METHODS |
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Primary lymphocyte and monocyte culture. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) from healthy HIV-1-negative donors were isolated by Ficoll-Hypaque gradient centrifugation. The cells were then resuspended in Dulbecco modified Eagle medium (GIBCO BRL) and plated at 8 × 105 cells per well in 24-well tissue culture plates. After 3 h of culture, the adherent cells were washed extensively with phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) and cultured in Dulbecco modified Eagle medium supplemented with 10% human AB serum (Sigma) and 1,000 U of macrophage colony-stimulating factor (M-CSF; R&D Systems) for 1 week to allow differentiation into monocyte-derived macrophages (MDM). Nonadherent cells were collected by centrifugation, resuspended in RPMI 1640 (GIBCO BRL) supplemented with 10% heat-inactivated fetal calf serum, and stimulated with phytohemagglutinin (Sigma) at 3 µg/ml for 2 days. Cells were then washed and cultured for another 5 days in medium supplemented with 10 U of interleukin-2 (R&D Systems) per ml.
Plasmid construction.
Complete envelope gp120-coding
sequences were PCR amplified from proviral clones encoding the PR-R5
isolate ADA (28) and the TCLA-X4 isolate HXB3
(20) or from full-length env clones derived
from the PR-X4 isolates QH1549 and QH1558 (19). The primers used were targeted to a SalI site within the first
coding exon of tat and to a BamHI site located
within envelope gp41 sequences. These env fragments were
then used to generate the infectious proviral clones pNL-ADA, pNL-HXB,
pNL-1549, and pNL-1558 by replacement of the corresponding
SalI-BamHI fragment of pNL4-3 (1).
For viral infectivity assays, similar proviral clones carrying the luciferase gene in place of nef, termed pNL-Luc-ADA,
pNL-Luc-HXB, pNL-Luc-1549, and pNL-Luc-1558, respectively, were created
by cloning the env fragments described above into the same
sites in pNL-Luc-E
R+ (8).
R+ as follows. First, to prevent all
late HIV-1 protein expression in target cells (26), a stop
codon was introduced into the BamHI site located in the
second exon of rev to generate pNL-Luc/Rev
.
Then, the NotI-XhoI fragment encoding luciferase
was replaced with a PCR-generated NotI-XhoI
fragment encoding either CD4 or CXCR4 (5). pNL-CXCR4-D187A
(6) was derived from pNL-CXCR4 by mutation of residue 187 in CXCR4 from aspartic acid to alanine using a QuickChange mutagenesis
kit (Stratagene). Similarly, pNL-CXCR4-
i3A (6) was
constructed by deletion of four residues within the third intracellular
loop of CXCR4 (227-SHSK-230) by QuickChange mutagenesis. The negative
control vector, pNL-con, was generated by deleting the luciferase gene
from pNL-Luc/Rev
.
Cell maintenance and transfection.
Sup-T1, CEM-SS, COS7, and
293T cells were maintained as described elsewhere (20,
26). To prepare HIV-1 virus stocks, 293T cells were transfected
with 2 µg of a proviral expression plasmid by using FuGENE 6 (Roche).
HIV-1-based lentivirus vectors were generated by cotransfecting 293T
cells with 0.5 µg of the Rev expression vector pcRev
(26) and 0.5 µg of the vesicular stomatitis virus
glycoprotein (VSV-G) expression vector pHIT/G (17) with 1 µg of a lentivirus vector plasmid, using FuGENE 6. The culture medium
was replaced 16 h later, and the culture supernatants were harvested 40 h after transfection, and filtered through
0.45-µm-pore-size filters, and virus yield was measured by p24 Gag
antigen capture enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) (NEN Life
Science). Virus stocks were stored at
80°C until needed.
Virus replication assay. PBMC, Sup-T1 cells, and CEM-SS cells (106 of each) were infected overnight with 50 ng of p24 antigen of NL-ADA, NL-HXB, NL-1549, or NL-1558 in the presence or absence of the CXCR4 inhibitor AMD3100 (12) at a concentration of 1 µg/ml, washed extensively with PBS, and then cultured in fresh medium. Supernatants were sampled every 2 days, and p24 Gag antigen production was quantified by ELISA.
Luciferase reporter virus assays. COS7 cells were transfected with 100 ng of pCMV5/CD4 (5) alone or together with either pCMV5/CCR5 or pCMV5/CXCR4 (5), using FuGENE 6; 48 h later, the cells were infected with 20 ng of p24 antigen of a luciferase reporter virus. After 48 h, the cells were lysed in 200 µl of lysis buffer (Promega), and luciferase activities were determined (34) with a Lumat LB 9501 luminometer. For infection experiments in macrophages, 7-day-old cultures of MDM were infected overnight with 20 ng of p24 antigen of a luciferase reporter virus in the presence or absence of AMD3100 (1 µg/ml), washed with PBS, and cultured in fresh medium; 72 h after infection, the cells were harvested for luciferase assay as described above.
Flow cytometry. COS7 cells transfected with pCMV5/CD4 and pCMV5/CXCR4 (5) were stained with the anti-CD4 MAb Leu-3A conjugated with fluorescein and the anti-CXCR4 MAb 12G5 conjugated with phycoerythrin (Becton Dickinson), or an isotype control antibody, for 30 min on ice. MDM were stained with the anti-CD14 MAb M5E2 conjugated with allophycocyanin (Becton Dickinson), or the MAbs described above, for 30 min on ice. The cells were then washed extensively with PBS, fixed with 4% formaldehyde in PBS, and then analyzed by fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) on a FACscan cytometer. Mean fluorescence intensity (MFI) was determined using CellQuest software (Becton Dickinson).
Overexpression of CD4 or CXCR4 on macrophages. Seven-day-old cultures of MDM were transduced overnight with 10 ng of VSV-G-pseudotyped lentiviral vector encoding CD4, wild-type or mutant CXCR4, or a control vector. The cells were then washed extensively with PBS and cultured in fresh medium for an additional 3 days. Then, the transduced MDM were infected overnight with 20 ng of p24 antigen of a luciferase reporter virus, washed with PBS, and cultured in fresh medium; 72 h after infection, the cells were harvested for luciferase assay as described above.
Calcium mobilization assay. Calcium mobilization was measured essentially as previously described (31). Briefly, COS7 cells expressing wild-type or mutant CXCR4 were generated by retroviral transduction. Then 5 × 106 cells were loaded with the fluorescent probe indo-1/acetoxymethyl ester (1 µM, final concentration), in the presence of 1 µM pleuronic acid, for 30 min at room temperature. The cells were then washed and resuspended in 1.5 ml of HEPES-buffered saline. Intracellular calcium was measured in the presence or absence of SDF-1 (100 ng/ml; Becton Dickinson) by determination of indo-1 fluorescence in a Perkin-Elmer fluorescence spectrophotometer (model 650-19).
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RESULTS |
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Infection of cells by PR-X4 HIV-1 isolates.
Proviral clones
encoding replication-competent forms of ADA, a commonly used PR-R5
HIV-1 isolate, and HXB3, derived from the prototypic TCLA-X4 isolate
IIIB, have been previously described (20, 34, 41). QH1549
and QH1558 are two recently described PR-X4 isolates, derived from two
late-stage AIDS patients, for which full-length env clones
exist (19). To facilitate an accurate comparison of the
abilities of the env genes derived from each of these
distinct isolates to support infection of different cells in culture,
we initially subcloned the entire gp120 region of each of these four
viruses in place of the equivalent env sequence present in
the replication-competent pNL4-3 proviral clone (1) and in
the indicator virus pNL-Luc-E
R+
(8). This latter virus bears the luciferase indicator gene in place of the viral nef gene and is used to quantify the
level of viral infection over a single replication cycle. By varying only the env gene, leaving most of the rest of the HIV-1
provirus invariant, we hoped to avoid variability in viral gene
expression due to, for example, sequence differences in the viral long
terminal repeat promoter.
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PR-X4 HIV-1 isolates efficiently infect cells expressing low levels
of CXCR4.
We next wished to address whether the TCLA-X4 virus
NL-Luc-HXB and the PR-X4 viruses NL-Luc-1549 and NL-Luc-1558 might
differ in the ability to use a given level of cell surface CD4 or
CXCR4. To perform this experiment, we transfected COS7 cells, which
express neither CD4 nor CXCR4, with a high and constant level of an
expression vector encoding CD4 together with a range of levels of a
CXCR4 expression plasmid. In parallel, we performed the converse
experiment; i.e., COS7 cells were transfected with a high and constant
level of the CXCR4 expression plasmid and various levels of a CD4
expression plasmid. Two days after transfection, these COS7 cells were
used either for infection with the indicator virus NL-Luc-HXB,
NL-Luc-1549, or NL-Luc-1558 (Fig. 4A and B) or subjected to FACS
analysis using MAbs specific for CD4 and CXCR4 (Fig. 4C and
D).
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Effect of overexpression of CXCR4 or CD4 on the level of infection of primary macrophages by HIV-1. Macrophages are difficult to transfect and, because they are nondividing, also cannot be transduced by conventional retroviral expression vectors. We therefore chose to construct HIV-1-based lentiviral expression vectors encoding CD4 or CXCR4, as these can infect nondividing cells such as macrophages.
The vectors used were based on the luciferase indicator virus NL-Luc-E
R+ (8), which bears an
inactivating frameshift mutation in the viral env gene.
Initially, an inactivating frameshift mutation was also introduced into
rev, thus blocking all late viral gene expression in the
absence of Rev protein provided in trans (26). Then, the luc gene, which is located in place of the early
HIV-1 nef gene, was replaced by either the CD4 (pNL-CD4) or
the CXCR4 (pNL-CXCR4) open reading frame.
To generate infectious lentiviral virions, the pNL-CD4 or pNL-CXCR4
expression plasmid or the pNL-con control plasmid was transfected into
293T cells together with a plasmid expressing HIV-1 Rev and a second
plasmid expressing VSV-G. At ~40 h after transfection, the
supernatant media were harvested and levels of released virions were
quantitated by p24 ELISA. The resultant VSV-G-pseudotyped HIV-1
particles are predicted to encode only the HIV-1 early gene products
after transduction of susceptible cells, due to the lack of a
functional rev gene. Nef is also not expressed, as these
constructs contain instead of nef either the CD4 or the
CXCR4 open reading frame or, in the case of pNL-con, a deletion of
nef. However, these viruses are all predicted to encode a
functional tat gene product. Their ability to express tat allowed us to derive an approximate infectious titer for
the released lentiviral virions by using the indicator cell line MAGI, which encodes a chromosomal
-galactosidase indicator gene, under the
control of the HIV-1 long terminal repeat promoter, that is expressed
only in the presence of Tat (32). Using the MAGI assay, we
estimate that these released virion particles exhibit a titer of
~8 × 105 infectious units per 10 ng of p24 protein
(data not shown).
To confirm that these lentiviral vectors indeed encoded functional CD4
and CXCR4 proteins, we first transduced COS7 cells with pNL-CD4 and
pNL-CXCR4 either alone or in combination. After 48 h, the cells
were then infected with the NL-Luc-HXB indicator virus, and induced
luciferase levels were determined after an additional 48 h. As
shown in Fig. 5A, we observed efficient
infection of COS7 cells transduced by both the NL-CD4 and the NL-CXCR4
lentiviral vector but no infection of cells transduced with only one of
these two vectors. Therefore, we conclude that these HIV-1-based
lentiviral vectors are capable of inducing the expression of
biologically active CD4 and CXCR4 receptors in transduced cells.
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Signaling-defective CXCR4 mutants support HIV-1 infection of
MDM.
It has been proposed that productive infection of MDM via the
CXCR4 coreceptor requires a signaling event induced by Env binding to
CXCR4 (3, 25, 40). To test this hypothesis, we constructed lentiviral vectors that express two distinct CXCR4 mutants, termed D187A and
i3A, that have both previously been shown to be defective for SDF-1-induced signaling (6). However, both the D187A
missense mutant, in which residue Asp187 has been mutated
to Ala, and the
i3A deletion mutant, which lacks four residues from
the third intracellular loop of CXCR4 (227-SHSK-230), remain fully able
to bind the SDF-1 chemokine (6). Both CXCR4 mutants have
also been previously reported to support infection of transfected cell
lines by TCLA-X4 HIV-1 (6).
i3A mutants would support NL-Luc-HXB infection of
COS7 cells. In fact, as shown in Fig. 5A, infection of COS7 cells expressing CD4 and either CXCR4-D187A or CXCR4-
i3A proceeded as efficiently as did infection of COS7 cells expressing CD4 and wild-type CXCR4. Next, we asked whether the CXCR4-D187A and
CXCR4-
i3A mutants were capable of signaling by measuring
the ability of SDF-1 to induce calcium mobilization in COS7 cells
expressing either wild-type or mutant CXCR4. As shown in Fig. 5C,
calcium mobilization was readily detected in COS7 cells
expressing wild-type CXCR4, but no signaling was observed in
CXCR4-D187A- or CXCR4-
i3A-expressing cells.
To examine whether the ability of CXCR4 to signal plays a role in HIV-1
infection of primary macrophages, we next transduced MDM with
lentiviral vectors expressing wild-type CXCR4, CXCR4-D187A, or CXCR4-
i3A and then measured the level of infection by the TCLA-X4
indicator virus NL-Luc-HXB. As shown in Fig. 5D, overexpression of the
signaling-defective CXCR4-D187A or CXCR4-
i3A mutant enhanced TCLA-X4
infection to the same extent (~10-fold) as wild-type CXCR4. These
data strongly suggest that it is the level of cell surface CXCR4
expression, not signaling via CXCR4, that determines the level of
productive infection.
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DISCUSSION |
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The majority of HIV-1 research continues to utilize a small number of closely related TCLA-X4 viruses belonging to clade B. These virus isolates, i.e., LAV and the derived proviral clones LAI and NL4-3, and IIIB and the derived proviral clones HXB2 and HXB3, differ from PR isolates in a number of key ways. Probably the most significant difference is the fact that most PR isolates of HIV-1 utilize CCR5 either instead of, or sometimes in addition to, CXCR4 (2, 7, 10, 14, 16, 44, 45). However, a small number of PR-X4 isolates have also been reported; these appear generally similar to PR-R5 isolates, and dissimilar to TCLA-X4 viruses, in that they replicate relatively poorly in CD4+ T-cell lines, can infect primary macrophages, and are resistant to neutralization by sCD4 (29, 38, 39, 43) (Fig. 2 and 3). Therefore, different coreceptor specificities provide at best a partial explanation for the observed differences between the TCLA-X4 viruses on the one hand and PR isolates on the other.
A possible explanation for the inability of most PR-X4 viruses to replicate efficiently in CD4+ T-cell lines was suggested by the observation that PR viruses have a relatively low affinity for CD4 compared to TCLA-X4 viruses and that adaptation of PR-X4 isolates for growth on CD4+ T cells in culture selects for a significantly higher affinity for CD4 (22). In fact, it has been demonstrated that the ability of some, but not all, PR-X4 isolates to replicate in T-cell lines can be rescued by overexpression of CD4 (29).
Based on these data, it seemed possible that the inability of TCLA-X4 viruses to infect primary macrophages that are susceptible to infection by PR-X4 isolates might simply reflect an inability of the viruses to effectively utilize low levels of cell surface CXCR4. This hypothesis makes three clear predictions. First, the requirement of TCLA-X4 viruses, compared to PR-X4 viruses, for a higher level of cell surface CXCR4 should not be unique to macrophages. TCLA-X4 viruses should therefore also be less effective than PR-X4 viruses at infecting transformed CD4+ cells that express low levels of CXCR4. Second, overexpression of CXCR4 on primary macrophages should boost infection by TCLA-X4 viruses but have at most a moderate effect on infection by PR-X4 viruses. Third, mutations that block signaling via CXCR4 should not affect infection via CXCR4 on either cell lines or primary macrophages.
In this study, we used a prototypic TCLA-X4 virus, expressing an
env gene derived from the HXB3 proviral clone
(20), and two novel PR-X4 viruses, expressing
env genes derived from the recently described patient
isolates QH1549 and QH1558 (19), to test each of these
three predictions. Specifically, we have shown that the TCLA-X4 virus
was able to infect COS7 cells expressing high levels of CXCR4 and low
levels of CD4 more effectively than either PR-X4 virus (Fig. 4A), yet
the TCLA-X4 virus was significantly less effective than either PR-X4
virus at infecting COS7 cells expressing low levels of CXCR4 and high
levels of CD4 (Fig. 4B). Consistent with the hypothesis that cell
surface CXCR4 levels are a major determinant of infection efficiency by
TCLA-X4, but not PR-X4, viruses, we showed that overexpression of CXCR4
on MDM, using a lentiviral vector, dramatically enhanced the efficiency of infection by the TCLA-X4 virus while exerting only a modest positive
effect on PR-X4 virus infection efficiency (Fig. 5B). The hypothesis
that PR-X4 virus infection is, in contrast, more subject to variation
in the level in CD4 expression (22) was supported by the
finding that overexpression of CD4 on macrophages significantly
enhanced infection by both PR-X4 isolates yet had little effect on
infection by the TCLA-X4 virus (Fig. 5B). Finally, we present data
showing that two distinct, previously described (6)
mutants of CXCR4, termed D187A and
i3A, that fail to signal upon
binding of SDF-1 (Fig. 5C) are nevertheless fully able to support MDM
infection by TCLA-X4 HIV-1 (Fig. 5D).
Two alternative hypotheses have previously been proposed to explain the inability of TCLA-X4 viruses to infect primary macrophages even though these express low but readily detectable levels of CXCR4. One hypothesis suggests that productive infection of macrophages by X4 HIV-1 isolates is unusual in requiring virion-induced signaling via the CXCR4 chemokine receptor (3, 25, 40). This hypothesis therefore suggests that the interaction of a TCLA-X4 Env protein with CXCR4 is unable to generate this signaling event, while PR-X4 Env binding to CXCR4 does activate signaling. However, this hypothesis cannot explain why simply overexpressing CXCR4 on macrophages would greatly enhance TCLA-X4 virus infection (Fig. 5B), as the predicted inability of TCLA-X4 Env proteins to activate CXCR4 signaling would remain unchanged. Moreover, the fact that two distinct CXCR4 mutants that are not able to signal can also effectively support infection of MDM by TCLA-X4 HIV-1 (Fig. 5C and D) is clearly inconsistent with the proposal that CXCR4-mediated signaling is key for productive macrophage infection, although it does remain formally possible that both mutations inhibit only SDF-1-dependent, not HIV-1 Env-dependent, signaling via CXCR4. Finally, the observation that low levels of CXCR4 expressed on the transformed COS7 cell line can effectively support infection by PR-X4, but not TCLA-X4, viruses (Fig. 4) suggests that the selective tropism of PR-X4 viruses for macrophages can be accurately recreated in unrelated cells that express comparable levels of CXCR4 but that clearly do not depend on signaling for productive infection (6, 13, 15, 18).
A second proposal to explain the inability of TCLA-X4 viruses to infect primary macrophages suggests that CXCR4 in macrophages is expressed in a distinct, high-molecular-weight form that is selectively nonpermissive for TCLA-X4, but not PR-X4, virus infection (23). However, if CXCR4 is subject to distinct posttranslational processing in macrophages, then it is again hard to explain why simply overexpressing CXCR4 would rescue infection of macrophages by TCLA-X4 viruses (Fig. 5B) and also why it is possible to reproduce the inefficient infection of MDM by TCLA-X4 viruses, but not PR-X4 viruses, using transfected COS7 cells expressing a comparable level of CXCR4 (Fig. 4). We therefore conclude that the primary determinant of the inefficient infection of macrophages by TCLA-X4 viruses such as IIIB and LAI is the relatively low level of CXCR4 expressed on the surface of these primary cells in culture.
As noted above, one could suggest that the inability of TCLA-X4 viruses to efficiently infect low CXCR4-expressing cells reflects the low affinity of TCLA-X4 Env proteins for CXCR4, just as the inability of PR-X4 viruses to efficiently infect low-CD4-expressing cells (Fig. 4A) appears to result from a low affinity for CD4 (22, 29). However, it is also possible that it is the lability of the TCLA Env-CD4 heterodimer, compared to the highly stable PR Env-CD4 heterodimer, that leads to a requirement for a high level of cell surface CXCR4. This difference in the stability of these heterodimeric complexes can be readily revealed by treatment of virus preparations with sCD4, which rapidly neutralizes TCLA-X4 virions but has little or no inhibitory effect on virions bearing a PR-X4 Env protein (references 9, 21, 27, and 29 and data not shown). It is therefore possible that only a very short window of opportunity exists for the labile TCLA Env-CD4 complex to recruit CXCR4 and form a more stable Env-CD4-CXCR4 ternary complex. Clearly, the likelihood that this recruitment would occur successfully would depend on the level of CXCR4 on the surface of the CD4+ target cell. Conversely, PR-X4 isolates may form a highly stable Env-CD4 complex, and even a low level of CXCR4 would then be predicted to suffice to support the eventual formation of the final ternary complex.
It is of interest to compare the data presented in this report, arguing that low CXCR4 expression can explain the inability of TCLA-X4 HIV-1 to infect primary human macrophages, with recently published data examining why certain primary T-cell-tropic (T-tropic) simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) variants are unable to infect primary simian macrophages (4). Remarkably, these workers were able to show that the ability of T-tropic SIV to infect primary simian macrophages could be effectively rescued by overexpression of CD4 after transduction of these primary cells with a lentiviral CD4 expression vector. Overexpression of the CCR5 coreceptor had, in contrast, relatively little effect on the level of infection (4). Therefore, it would appear that inefficient infection of simian macrophages by T-tropic SIV simply results from a suboptimal level of cell surface CD4. Similarly, Platt et al. (29) have recently presented evidence arguing that inefficient infection of CD4+ T-cell lines by PR-X4 isolates of HIV-1 also largely reflects a suboptimal level of cell surface CD4. Finally, in this report, we present evidence that the inefficient infection of human macrophages by the TCLA HIV-1 isolate IIIB results from a low level of cell surface CXCR4. Together, these data support the general hypothesis that the various tissue tropisms displayed by different primate lentivirus isolates are likely to largely reflect different minimal requirements for both CD4 and coreceptor expression on the surface of target cells.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS |
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We thank R. M. Richardson for help with the calcium
mobilization assay, N. R. Landau for the gift of the luciferase
indicator virus pNL-Luc-E
R+, and M. H. Malim for the VSV-G expression plasmid pHIT/G.
This work was supported in part by grant AI42538 from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to K.T. and B.R.C., as well as by NIH grants CA78673 to H.K.L., RR00030 to M.A.M., and AI40237 to M.L.G., and also by the Duke Center for AIDS Research (AI28662). M.A.M. is a recipient of an American Society of Clinical Oncology Career Award and B.R.C. is an Investigator in the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
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FOOTNOTES |
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* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of Genetics, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Duke University Medical Center, Box 3025, Durham, NC 27710. Phone: (919) 684-3369. Fax: (919) 681-8979. E-mail: culle002{at}mc.duke.edu.
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