Enhancement of transduction and infection of SIV in CD4+ T cells from macaques using Magnetofection

CD4+T cells purified from macaque PBMC were cultured 6 days before being infected with SIV using ViroMag.

This paper shows the efficiency of ViroMag from OZ Biosciences to enhance infection and transduction in primary CD4+ T lymphocytes from macaques.

article reference: PLoS One. 2014 Mar 20;9(3):e92012. 

Vaccination against Endogenous Retrotransposable Element Consensus Sequences Does Not Protect Rhesus Macaques from SIVsmE660 Infection and Replication.

Sheppard NC, Jones RB, Burwitz BJ, Nimityongskul FA, Newman LP, Buechler MB, Reed JS, Piaskowski SM, Weisgrau KL, Castrovinci PA, Wilson NA, Ostrowski MA, Park B, Nixon DF, Rakasz EG, Sacha JB.

Abstract

The enormous sequence diversity of HIV remains a major roadblock to the development of a prophylactic vaccine and new approaches to induce protective immunity are needed. Endogenous retrotransposable elements (ERE) such as endogenous retrovirus K (ERV)-K and long interspersed nuclear element-1 (LINE-1) are activated during HIV-1-infection and could represent stable, surrogate targets to eliminate HIV-1-infected cells. Here, we explored the hypothesis that vaccination against ERE would protect macaques from acquisition and replication of simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV). Following vaccination with antigens derived from LINE-1 and ERV-K consensus sequences, animals mounted immune responses that failed to delay acquisition of SIVsmE660. We observed no differences in acute or set point viral loads between ERE-vaccinated and control animals suggesting that ERE-specific responses were not protective. Indeed, ERE-specific T cells failed to expand anamnestically in vivo following infection with SIVsmE660 and did not recognize SIV-infected targets in vitro, in agreement with no significant induction of targeted ERE mRNA by SIV in macaque CD4+ T cells. Instead, lower infection rates and viral loads correlated significantly to protective TRIM5α alleles. Cumulatively, these data demonstrate that vaccination against the selected ERE consensus sequences in macaques did not lead to immune-mediated recognition and killing of SIV-infected cells, as has been shown for HIV-infected human cells using patient-derived HERV-K-specific T cells. Thus, further research is required to identify the specific nonhuman primate EREs and retroviruses that recapitulate the activity of HIV-1 in human cells. These results also highlight the complexity in translating observations of the interplay between HIV-1 and human EREs to animal models.

ViroMag from OZ Biosciences is a magnetic nanoparticles formulation optimized for increasing any kind of virus infection and transduction both in vitro and in vivo.