Aids Virus Particles from a Cloned T Cell Line

A unique human retrovirus (RV) 1 has been consistently isolated f rom patients with the acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). Infection o f human T lymphocytes or T lymphocyte lines with the AIDS RV can result in a variety of outcomes ranging from rapid cell death to the integration of functionally inert proviral DNAs (1-3). A typical AIDS RV infection is characterized by the appearance of mult inucleated cells, a burst of reverse transcriptase (RT) activity, and p ro found cellular degenera t ion that extends over a 5 -20-d period (1, 4). T w o recent reports have described noncytotoxic effects of the AIDS RV on human lymphocytes. In one case (2), PHA-stimulated, IL-2-dependent cultures o f helperinducer human T cells exhibi ted the characteristic cytopathic effects of acute viral infection, but nonetheless, sufficient numbers of cells survived to cont inue to p roduce infectious virus dur ing the 4 mo they were maintained in culture. In the o the r (3), we described Leu-3non-v i rus-producing ceils, derived from a Leu-3 + T cell line, that survived infection with the AIDS RV, and which could be induced with 5iodo-2 ' -deoxyuridine (IUdR) to express infectious virus (3). In this repor t we have examined in grea ter detail IUdR induction o f lymphocytes surviving acute viral infection. A cellular clone was isolated from a mass culture of survivor cells that contained a single copy o f the AIDS RV provirus. T h e integrated proviral DNA was constitutively expressed but genera ted defective virus particles that failed to synthesize detectable reverse transcriptase. T h e Address correspondence to Dr. Thomas M. Folks, Laboratory of Immunoregulation, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, NIH, Building 10, Room 11B-I 3, 9000 Rockville Pike 20892. i Abbreviations used in this paper: AIDS, acquired immune deficiency syndrome; CAT, chloramphenicol acetyl transferase; IUdR, 5-iodo-2'-deoxyuridine; LAV, lymphadenopatby-associated virus; LTR, long terminal repeat; PLPG, periodate/lysine/paraformaldehyde/glutaraldehyde; RT, reverse transcriptase; RV, retrovirus.