Coreceptor specificity of temporal variants of simian immunodeficiency virus Mne

The simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) Mne envelope undergoes genetic changes that alter tropism, syncytium-inducing capacity, and antigenic properties of the emerging variant virus population during the course of an infection. Here we investigated whether the mutations in envelope of SIVMne also influence coreceptor usage. The data demonstrate that the infecting macrophage-tropic SIVMne clone as well as the envelope variants that are selected during the course of disease progression all recognize both CCR5 and Bob (GPR15) but not Bonzo (STRL33), CXCR4, or CCR3. Although it remains to be determined if there are other coreceptors specific for dualtropic or T-cell-tropic variants of SIVMne that emerge during late stages of infection, these data suggest that such SIV variants that evolve in pathogenic infections do not lose the ability to recognize CCR5 or Bob/GPR15.