Rhesus Monkey TRIM5α Has Distinct HIV-1 Restriction Activity Among Different Mammalian Cell Lines

• Published in: Current microbiology 2011-12, Vol.63 (6), p.531-537
• Main Authors: Gong, Jian, Shen, Xi-Hui, Qiu, Hui, Chen, Chao, Yang, Rong-Ge
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Amino Acid Sequence; Animals; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Biotechnology; Callithrix; Cloning, Molecular; Dogs; Genetic Variation; HeLa Cells; HIV Infections - immunology; HIV Infections - virology; HIV-1 - genetics; HIV-1 - immunology; Humans; Life Sciences; Macaca mulatta; Microbiology; Microscopy, Confocal; Microscopy, Fluorescence; Molecular Sequence Data; Proteins - genetics; Proteins - immunology; Species Specificity; Transduction, Genetic
• ISSN: 0343-8651; 1432-0991
• DOI: 10.1007/s00284-011-0009-z

Rhesus monkey TRIM5α (TRIM5α rh ), a member of the tripartite motif (TRIM) family, was identified as the main restriction factor responsible for resistance of old world monkey cells to HIV-1 infection. However, the precise mechanism of HIV-1 infection inhibition by TRIM5α remains elusive and appears to be related to some cellular cofactors. Here we reported that TRIM5α rh can significantly reduce the infection efficiency of VSV-G pseudotyped HIV-1/MA-YFP virus in human epithelial carcinoma (HeLa) cells, moderately reduce in porcine kidney (PK-15) cells and have no effect on the pseudotyped virus infection in Madin-Darby canine kidney (MDCK) cells. Furthermore, we found that the different HIV-1 restriction activities have no relation with the intracellular localization of TRIM5α rh . These results indicate that the cellular environment is very important for the efficient anti-HIV-1 activity of TRIM5α rh . We speculate that some unknown factors required for HIV-1 infection inhibition activity are adequately expressed in HeLa cells, inadequately expressed in PK-15 cells and absent in MDCK cells.