Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) infect and productively replicate in macrophages and T lymphocytes. Here, we show that SIV virions derived from macrophages have higher levels of infectivity than those derived from T cells. The lower infectivity of T-cell-derived viruses is influenced by the quantity or type of mannose residues on the virion. Our results demonstrate that the cellular origin of a virus is a major factor in viral infectivity. Cell-type-specific factors in viral infectivity, and organ-specific or disease stage-specific differences in cellular derivation of virions, can be critical in the pathogenesis of HIV and AIDS.
CD4ϩ T cells and macrophages are the major targets and sources of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV). In view of the essential but highly distinct roles these cell types play in the pathogenesis of HIV (7,9,14,22), understanding how viral production in each of these cell types affects the subsequent activity of virions is important for understanding the development of disease. To determine if different factors to which virions are exposed during their generation can influence their infectivity, we generated SIV stocks from both macrophages and T cells.Two molecular clones of SIV, SIVmac316 (17) and SIVmac129 (6), were used to generate viral stocks from both macrophages and T cells. These SIV stocks (herein referred to as matching viral stocks) were derived from infection of primary rhesus monocytederived macrophages (MDM) or primary rhesus T cells. Primary MDM were derived from freshly isolated rhesus peripheral blood mononuclear cells by immunomagnetic CD11b selection and differentiated by adherence for 6 days in the presence of macrophage colony-stimulating factor (10 ng/ml). The remaining peripheral blood mononuclear cells were then subjected to CD8 immunomagnetic depletion to yield CD4 ϩ enriched cells for the primary T-cell cultures and then stimulated with phytohemagglutinin (5 g/ml) and interleukin 2 (10 ng/ml) for 3 days. Following stimulation, T cells were cultured in the presence of interleukin 2 alone for 3 additional days.Both MDM and T cells were inoculated with SIV after 6 days in culture, and cell-free supernatants from each cell type were collected daily for 8 days after SIV inoculation and stored at Ϫ80°C. Stocks were then pooled and either aliquoted and frozen or purified by ultracentrifugation over a 20% sucrose cushion to eliminate contaminating cell-derived factors such as cytokines and then aliquoted and stored at Ϫ80°C. Stocks from macrophages and T cells were collected, stored, and processed simultaneously to avoid preparation related differences in infectivity. Viral stocks were generated from a total of 12 different rhesus donors; only macrophage and T-cell stocks derived from cells isolated from a single donor at the same time were used for comparison. SIV stocks were quantified by both enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for p27 Gag (Beckman-Coulter) and branched-DNA assa...