Generation of infectious molecular clones of simian immunodeficiency virus from fecal consensus sequences of wild chimpanzees.

ABSTRACT: Studies of simian immunodeficiency viruses (SIVs) in their endangered primate hosts are of obvious medical and public health importance, but technically challenging. Although SIV-specific antibodies and nucleic acids have been detected in primate fecal samples, recovery of replication-competent virus from such samples has not been achieved. Here, we report the construction of infectious molecular clones of SIVcpz from fecal viral consensus sequences. Subgenomic fragments comprising a complete provirus were amplified from fecal RNA of three wild-living chimpanzees and sequenced directly. One set of amplicons was concatenated using overlap extension PCR. The resulting clone (TAN1.24) contained intact genes and regulatory regions but was replication defective. It also differed from the fecal

SUBMITTER: Takehisa J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1933379 | biostudies-literature | 2007 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature