Large-scale nucleotide optimization of simian immunodeficiency virus reduces its capacity to stimulate type I interferon in vitro.

ABSTRACT:

Unlabelled

Lentiviral RNA genomes present a strong bias in their nucleotide composition with extremely high frequencies of A nucleotide in human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) and simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV). Based on the observation that human optimization of RNA virus gene fragments may abolish their ability to stimulate the type I interferon (IFN-I) response, we identified the most biased sequences along the SIV genome and showed that they are the most potent IFN-I stimulators. With the aim of designing an attenuated SIV genome based on a reduced capacity to activate the IFN-I response, we synthesized artificial SIV genomes whose biased sequences were optimized toward macaque average nucleotide composition without altering their regulatory elements or amino acid s

SUBMITTER: Vabret N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3993766 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature