4th International AIDS Conference Stockholm, Sweden. — June 12-16, 1988

Int Conf AIDS. 1988 Jun 12-16;4:1.117 (abstract no. 1018)

Marie-Louise Hammarskjöld, Jessica Heimer, David Rekosh
Departments of Microbiology and Biochemistry, SUNY at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY 14214, USA

An eukaryotic vector, pSVSX1, expressing large amounts of the HIV envelope proteins gp160/120/41 was obtained by inserting the SalI-XhoI fragment, containing the env, tat and art/trs genes, from the BH10 isolate of the HIV genome into a late SV40 replacement vector. Cotransfection experiments using this vector and a LTR construct shows that pSVSX1 expresses a functional tat protein in addition to the envelope proteins. Western blot analysis of transfected monkey cells show that sera from some HIV seropositive individuals detect 4 distinct low molecular weight HIV specific proteins with apparent molecular weights of 15-25 kD. Northern blot analysis of RNA from transfected monkey cells show 3 HIV-specific mRNAs of 4000, 1150 and 700 bp. An env gene specific probe detects only the 4000 bp mRNA. In contrast to this, analysis of cells transfected with a deletion mutant of pSVSX1, lacking the second coding exon of the art/trs gene, shows only two small RNAs in increased amounts. The env gene specific probe fails to detect any mRNA in these cells. The deletion mutant expresses a functional tat protein, but does not express detectable amounts of envelope protein unless cotransfected with an art/trs containing vector. Our results indicate that art/trs is important for efficient envelope expression in this heterologous vector system and support the notion that art/trs is involved in the regulation of differential splicing of HIV mRNAs.

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