Variability of HIV-1 virus: Characteristics of a HIV-infected but non productive clone

Two cell clones (D10 and F12) have been isolated from Hut-78 cells infected with a reverse transcriptase positive supernatant of a culture of peripheral blood lymphocytes from an AIDS patient. Both clones are persistently infected by HIV but, whereas D10 clone produces infectious viral particles, F12 clone does not release virus particles in the medium. D10 and F12 clones differ in terms of protein pattern. The protein pattern of D10 is superimposable to that of infected Hut-78 cells, whereas F12 exhibits a reducerd uncleaved p55 gag precursor, uncleaved gp160 and a unique p19 protein. Restriction patterns of F12 proviral DNA do not show major genomic deletions. Thus the F12 clone cells may carry an entire HIV genome with minor mutations which probably affect the correct production of viral proteins at a post-transcriptional level. In addition, the F12 clone is resistant to high-multiplicity superinfection with HIV-1 or HIV-2.