Isolation and characterization of human cells resistant to retrovirus infection

Characterization of resistance to rhabdovirus and retrovirus infection in a human myeloid cell line

Viruses interact with various permissive and restrictive factors in host cells throughout their replication cycle. Cell lines that are non-permissive to viral infection have been particularly useful in discovering host cell proteins involved in viral life cycles. Here we describe the characterization of a human myeloid leukemia cell line, KG-1, that is resistant to infection by retroviruses and a Rhabdovirus. We show that KG-1 cells are resistant to infection by Vesicular Stomatits Virus as well as VSV Glycoprotein (VSVG) pseudotyped retroviruses due to a defect in binding. Moreover our results indicate that entry by xenotropic retroviral envelope glycoprotein RD114 is impaired in KG-1 cells. Finally we characterize a post- entry block in the early phase of the retroviral life cycle in KG-1 cells that renders the cell line refractory to infection. This cell line will have utility in discovering proteins involved in infection by VSV and HIV-1.

The N-end rule and retroviral infection: no effect on integrase

BACKGROUND

Integration of double stranded viral DNA is a key step in the retroviral life cycle. Virally encoded enzyme, integrase, plays a central role in this reaction. Mature forms of integrase of several retroviruses (i.e. HIV-1 and MLV) bear conserved destabilizing N-terminal residues of the N-end rule pathway - a ubiquitin dependent proteolytic system in which the N-terminal residue of a protein determines its half life. Substrates of the N-end rule pathway are recognized by E3 ubiquitin ligases called N-recognins. We have previously shown that the inactivation of three of these N-recognins, namely UBR1, UBR2 and UBR4 in mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs) leads to increased stability of ectopically expressed HIV-1 integrase. These findings have prompted us to investigate the involvement of the N-end rule pathway in the HIV-1 life cycle.

RESULTS

The infectivity of HIV-1 but not MLV was decreased in N-recognin deficient cells in which three N-recognins (UBR1, UBR2 and UBR4) were depleted. HIV-1 integrase mutants of N-terminal amino acids (coding for stabilizing or destabilizing residues) were severely impaired in their infectivity in both human and mouse cells. Quantitative PCR analysis revealed that this inhibition was mainly caused by a defect in reverse transcription. The decreased infectivity was independent of the N-end rule since cells deficient in N-recognins were equally refractory to infection by the integrase mutants. MLV integrase mutants showed no difference in their infectivity or intravirion processing of integrase.

CONCLUSIONS

The N-end rule pathway impacts the early phase of the HIV-1 life cycle; however this effect is not the result of the direct action of the N-end rule pathway on the viral integrase. The N-terminal amino acid residue of integrase is highly conserved and cannot be altered without causing a substantial decrease in viral infectivity.

Involvement of inhibitory factors in the inefficient entry of HIV-1 into the human CD4 positive HUT78 cell line

Little is known about whether human CD4 positive T cells, the principal natural target of HIV-1, have intrinsic factors, other than the receptor/coreceptor molecules, which modulate the entry efficiency of HIV-1. In the present study, we found that human T cell lines, HUT78 and PM1, were less permissive to VSV-G-mediated HIV-1 infection compared with the Jurkat cell line. Furthermore, HUT78 cells were also less sensitive to HIV-1 Env-mediated infection, while PM1 cells became susceptible to HIV-1. Real-time PCR analyses showed that less susceptibility of the cells to HIV-1 was due to block at, or prior to, reverse transcription of viral RNA. To clarify the entry efficiency of HIV-1 into these cell lines, we analyzed the internalization of p24 Ag into the cytosolic and vesicular fractions of post-nuclear extracts at 4h post-infection. When the cells were infected with HIV-1 pseudotyped with VSV-G, the amount of p24 Ag in the cytosolic fractions in both HUT78 and PM1 cells was lower than that observed in Jurkat cells. In the case of HIV-1 Env-mediated infection, however, PM1 cells exhibited comparable amounts of p24 Ag in the cytosolic fraction compared with Jurkat cells, while the amount of p24 Ag in HUT78 cells remained low. Heterokaryon experiments between susceptible and less susceptible cell lines suggested that some inhibitory factors counteracted VSV-G-mediated viral entry in PM1 and HUT78 cells, and HIV-1 Env-mediated viral entry in HUT78 cells.