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

Int Conf AIDS. 1988 Jun 12-16;4:1.118 (abstract no. 1024)

Pierre G. Bauer¹, O.M. Barth^2
1Dept. Protozoologia, ²Dept. Virologia, FIOCRUZ Rio de Janeiro, Brasil

OBJECTIVE: This ultrastructural study analyses the entry of HIV-1 into lymphocytes.

METHODS: H9 cells of infected cultures were routinely prepared for transmission electron microscopy and systematically investigated.

RESULTS: HIV-1 could be observed adsorbed to the cell surface, near or inside coated pits, in coated vesicles, in vacuoles and multivesicular bodies. Neither fusion of the virus membrane with a vacuolar membrane nor the fusion of.Virus with the cell surface could be detected.

CONCLUSION:. We suggest that HIV-1, beside direct fusion at the cell surface (Stein et al., Cell. 1987 Jun 5;49(5):659-68, can enter cells by endocytosis, comparable to other enveloped viruses. HIV is taken up by clathrin-coated pits into coated vesicles. These vesicles transport the virus to endosomal vacuoles and multivesicular endosomes (and lysorsomes?), where the hardly detectable fusion of 1 the membranes may occur, probably in a pH-independent way (lit.cit.op.) and mediated by proteins(s) like gp4l, with fusogenic-like peptides] (Gallaher, Cell. 1987 Jul 31;50(3):327-8).

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1024

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