Browsing by Author "Bock, Stefanie"

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    Construction of a high titer infectious HIV-1 subtype C proviral clone from South Africa
    (MDPI, 2012-09-24) Jacobs, Graeme Brendon; Bock, Stefanie; Schuch, Anita; Moschall, Rebecca; Schrom, Eva-Maria; Zahn, Juliane; Reuter, Christian; Preiser, Wolfgang; Rethwilm, Axel; Engelbrecht, Susan; Kerkau, Thomas; Bodem, Jochen
    The Human Immunodeficiency Virus type 1 (HIV-1) subtype C is currently the predominant subtype worldwide. Cell culture studies of Sub-Saharan African subtype C proviral plasmids are hampered by the low replication capacity of the resulting viruses, although viral loads in subtype C infected patients are as high as those from patients with subtype B. Here, we describe the sequencing and construction of a new HIV-1 subtype C proviral clone (pZAC), replicating more than one order of magnitude better than the previous subtype C plasmids. We identify the env-region for being the determinant for the higher viral titers and the pZAC Env to be M-tropic. This higher replication capacity does not lead to a higher cytotoxicity compared to previously described subtype C viruses. In addition, the pZAC Vpu is also shown to be able to down-regulate CD4, but fails to fully counteract CD317.