Rhabdo-immunodeficiency virus, a murine model of acute HIV-1 infection
Abstract
Numerous challenges have impeded HIV-1 vaccine development. Among these is the lack of a convenient small animal model in which to study antibody elicitation and efficacy. We describe a chimeric Rhabdo-Immunodeficiency virus (RhIV) murine model that recapitulates key features of HIV-1 entry, tropism and antibody sensitivity. RhIVs are based on vesicular stomatitis viruses (VSV), but viral entry is mediated by HIV-1 Env proteins from diverse HIV-1 strains. RhIV infection of transgenic mice expressing human CD4 and CCR5, exclusively on mouse CD4+ cells, at levels mimicking those on human CD4+ T-cells, resulted in acute, resolving viremia and CD4+ T-cell depletion. RhIV infection elicited protective immunity, and antibodies to HIV-1 Env that were primarily non-neutralizing and had modest protective efficacy following passive transfer. The RhIV model enables the convenient in vivo study of HIV-1 Env-receptor interactions, antiviral activity of antibodies and humoral responses against HIV-1 Env, in a genetically manipulatable host.
Data availability
All data generated or analysed during this study are included in the manuscript and supporting files
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (R37AI064003)
- Paul D Bieniasz
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (R01AI078788)
- Theodora Hatziioannou
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (R01AI50111)
- Paul D Bieniasz
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
- Paul D Bieniasz
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Reviewing Editor
- Frank Kirchhoff, Ulm University Medical Center, Germany
Ethics
Animal experimentation: This study was performed in strict accordance with the recommendations in the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals of the National Institutes of Health. All of the animals were handled according to approved institutional animal care and use committee (IACUC) protocol (18047-H) of the Rockefeller University. All surgery was performed under anesthesia, and every effort was made to minimize suffering.
Version history
- Received: July 3, 2019
- Accepted: October 22, 2019
- Accepted Manuscript published: October 23, 2019 (version 1)
- Accepted Manuscript updated: October 24, 2019 (version 2)
- Version of Record published: November 22, 2019 (version 3)
Copyright
© 2019, Liberatore et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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