Isolation and Biological Characterization of Non-B HIV Type 1 from Kenya

Abstract The isolation and characterization of primary strains of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a vital tool for assessing properties of viruses replicating in HIV-infected subjects. HIV-1 isolation was carried out from 30 HIV-1-infected patients from a Comprehensive Care Clinic (CCC) after informed consent. Virus was successfully isolated from 9 out of the 30 samples investigated. Seven of the isolates were from drug-naive patients while two were from patients on antiretroviral drugs. The isolates were biologically phenotyped through measurement of the syncytium-inducing capacity in MT2 cells. Six of the isolates exhibited syncytia induction (SI) associated with CXCR4 coreceptor usage while three of the isolates were non-syncytia-inducing (NSI) isolates associated with CCR5 coreceptor usage. In addition, the replication capacity of the isolates was further determined in established cell line CD4+ C8166. Indirect immunofluorescence assay was used to check the antigen expression on the cells as a s...