Rectal Transmission of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 to Chimpanzees

• Published in: The Journal of infectious diseases 1999-05, Vol.179 (Supplement-3), p.S418-S421
• Main Authors: Fultz, Patricia N., Wei, Qing, Yue, Ling
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: AIDS; AIDS Vaccines; AIDS/HIV; Animal models; Animals; Antibodies, Viral - analysis; Biological and medical sciences; Chimpanzees; Disease Models, Animal; Disease transmission; Experimental viral diseases and models; HIV; HIV 1; HIV Infections - transmission; Immunity, Mucosal; Infections; Infectious diseases; Inoculation; Intestinal Mucosa - immunology; Intestinal Mucosa - virology; Male; Medical sciences; Pan troglodytes; Rectum - immunology; Rectum - virology; T lymphocytes; Viral diseases; Viruses
• ISSN: 0022-1899; 1537-6613
• DOI: 10.1086/314796

Inoculation of chimpanzees with human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) has been used as a model system to define mechanisms of pathogenesis and to test protective efficacy of candidate HIV-1 vaccines. In most of these studies, the animals were inoculated intravenously. However, because HIV-1 is transmitted primarily across mucosal surfaces, future evaluations of vaccines should employ mucosal routes for administering infectious virus to immunized animals. To develop a model of rectal transmission of HIV-1, chimpanzees were exposed without trauma to 4 different HIV-1 strains at doses ranging from 200 to 10,000 TCIDs. Infection, characterized by seroconversion and repeated isolation of virus from lymphocytes, was established in 1 of 5 animals. This animal was sequentially inoculated with a subtype B and then an E strain and was infected with both strains. The results show that rectal exposure of adult chimpanzees to cell-free HIV-1 was not an efficient mode of transmission in this cohort.