Designing a non-virulent HIV-1 strain: potential implications for vaccine

• Main Authors: Abbas Rezaei, Rezvan Zabihollahi, Mansoor Salehi, Sharareh Moghim, Hasan Tamizifar, Nasrin Yazdanpanahi, Gilda Amini
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Wolters Kluwer Medknow Publications 2007-10-01
• Series: Journal of Research in Medical Sciences
• Subjects: HIV-1, mzNL4-3, non-infectious, mutant, safe research, vaccine.
• Online Access: http://journals.mui.ac.ir/jrms/article/view/502
• ISSN: 1735-1995; 1735-7136

<strong>BACKGROUND</strong>: Culturing and working with wild type HIV virions may produce contamination and infection. The main<br /> objective of this study was to design a non-infective HIV-1 strain that can be used safely in research laboratories for<br /> various research topics on HIV life cycle and pathogenesis.<br /> <strong>METHODS</strong>: Non-infective HIV-1 strain (mzNL4-3) was designed by deleting a 2 Kb sequence of HIV-1 (NL4-3 strain)<br /> genome that codes reverse transcriptase (RT) and integrase (IN) enzymes.<br /> <strong>RESULTS</strong>: The deletion removed 95% of RT and 34% of IN peptide sequences and abolished the functions of these enzymes<br /> totally. This deletion didn’t produce any other alteration in HIV genome, not only in mRNA level but also in<br /> transcription or translation levels. We named this strain, mutated z NL4-3 (mzNL4-3).<br /> <strong>CONCLUSIONS</strong>: Our mutated HIV-1 virions can be produced by transforming any mammalian cell line with mzNL4-3<br /> vector (pmzNL4-3) but these virions can not replicate in any competent target cell. Hence, it can be used for many of<br /> the HIV-1 researches in a level 2 lab. mzNL4-3 has also the major antigen markers of HIV-1, NY5 and LAV strains,<br /> which are the most common strains of HIV-1. Therefore, mzNL4-3 can also be considered as a choice for HIV-1 vaccine<br /> investigation. Probably mzNL4-3 could be used for lab research and vaccine investigation.<br /> <strong>KEYWORDS</strong>: HIV-1, mzNL4-3, non-infectious, mutant, safe research, vaccine.