Suppression of simian immunodeficiency virus replication in primary peripheral mononuclear cells by antisense RNA

It has been demonstrated that human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) replication can be effectively blocked by an antisense sequence that was introduced into the lymphoid cell line through retroviral-mediated gene transfer. In this study, it is demonstrated that antisense RNA can also inhibit simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) replication in the peripheral blood mononuclear cells (MNCs) of healthy donors. MNCs were transduced with amphotropic recombinant virus encoding either sense or antisense constructs of SIV DNA fragments. After challenge with SIV, the viral replication was suppressed in the antisense-recombinant virus-transduced MNCs compared to sense-recombinant virus-transduced and untransduced MNCs. These data indicate that amphotropic retroviral vectors can be used to introduce antiviral factors (antisense sequence) into human primary MNCs and render them resistant to viral replication.