The development of an effective HIV-1 vaccine must be considered one of the greatest biomedical challenges of today. The nature of the virus, characterized by immense variability as well as its tropism for the essential CD4+ T cells of the immune system, allows it to establish a chronic infection for years under constant immune selection pressure. Eventually the depletion of CD4+ T cells is so ...

Abbreviations used: HIV, human immunodeficiency virus ; SIV, simian immunodeficiency virus; Env, envelope glycoprotein, VSV-G, vesicular stomatitis virus glycoprotein; GPCR, G-protein coupled receptor; CKR, chemokine receptor, PTX, Bordetella pertussis toxin; SH3, src homology-3; PACS-1, phosphofurin acidic cluster sorting protein-1; MHC, major histocompatibility class; GFP, green fluorescent p...

A method for rapidly producing helper-free murine leukemia virus (MLV) without using packaging cell lines is described. Viruses bearing ecotropic or amphotropic MLV or Rous sarcoma virus envelope glycoprotein and containing various retroviral vector genomes have been prepared with titers 30 to 40-fold higher than those produced by transient transfection of standard packaging cells. This system ...

In the absence of infectious subgroup E avian leukosis-sarcoma (ALS) viruses, some chicken embryo cells contain in their cell membrane the envelope glycoprotein of subgroup E viruses (gpE) (Hanafusa et al. 1973). The partial expression of subgroup E virus was first recognized as chick-cell-associated helper factor (chfl, which provided the helper function for the envelope-defective Bryan high-t...

The viral glycoproteins that decorate enveloped viruses play crucial roles in cell entry and in large part dictate the spectrum of cell types that a virus can infect. The identification in human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) of a viral endoplasmic reticulum (ER)-resident glycoprotein that regulates the composition of alternative viral envelope glycoprotein complexes raises the intriguing possibility t...

Herpes simplex virus, a DNA virus of high complexity, consists of a nucleocapsid surrounded by the tegument-a protein compartment-and the envelope. The latter components, essential for infectivity, are pleiomorphic. Visualized in cryo-electron tomograms of isolated virions, the tegument was seen to form an asymmetric cap: On one side, the capsid closely approached the envelope; on the other sid...

Treatment of rabies virus with the nonionic detergent Nonidet P-40 resulted in solubilization of viral lipids and in a preferential release of the envelope glycoprotein. The other viral proteins and the viral ribonucleic acid remained associated in "core" particles sedimenting at a rate similar to that of intact virions. After fractionation of treated virus by velocity centrifugation in a sucro...