No detection of CD4-independent human immunodeficiency virus 1 envelope glycoproteins in brain tissue of patients with or without neurological complications.

Macrophage (mac)-tropic human immnunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) and simian immnunodeficiency virus (SIV) in brain are associated with neurological disease. Mac-tropic HIV-1 evolves enhanced CD4 interactions that enable macrophage infection via CD4, which is in low abundance. In contrast, mac-tropic SIV is associated with CD4-independent infection via direct CCR5 binding. Recently, mac-tropic simian-human immunodeficiency virus (SHIV) from macaque brain was also reported to infect cells via CCR5 without CD4. Since SHIV envelope proteins (Envs) are derived from HIV-1, we tested more than 100 HIV-1 clade B Envs for infection of CD4-negative, CCR5+ Cf2Th/CCR5 cells. However, no infection was detected. Our data suggest that there are differences in the evolution of mac-tropism in SIV and SHIV compared to HIV-1 clade B due to enhanced interactions with CCR5 and CD4, respectively.