High level of cell mortality associated to in vitro HIV-1 different strain superinfection

P.N.FERNÁNDEZ LARROSA; S. MERSICH; F.COULOMBIÉ; A.CEBALLOS; R.RABINOVICH; L. MARTÍNEZ PERALTA.

Bangkok, Tailandia

Conferencia; XV International Conference on AIDS; 2004

International AIDS Society

Background: Viral production of HIV-1 is normally high in vivo and different viral variants accumulate over the time causing the necessary conditions for superinfection. Recently, several cases of superinfected patients have been reported and superinfection was suggested to be associated to a rapid AIDS progression. Other retrovirus cellular superinfections were associated to apoptosis and viral production increase. In our laboratory, in vitro superinfection with different HIV-1 strains was demonstrated to favor pseudotype production and viral reactivation. Material & Methods: H9HTLVIIIB cells, persistently infected with HXB2 viral strain, were pretreated with polybrene and superinfected with MN strain at different moi. H9 uninfected cell infection was also performed as a control for acute infection. Simultaneously, H9HTLVIIIB cells were treated only with polybrene or incubated with UV-inactivated HIVMN as controls. Cell mortality was quantified at different times post-superinfection (ps) by using Trypan-blue dye and percentage of dead cells was calculated by counting a minimum of 300 cells per sample. To detect the presence of apoptosis, Hoescht nuclear staining was performed. Results: Mortality of superinfected cells from day 1 ps was 46%, coincident with viral production peak, and increased up to 70% at day 4 ps (p