Augmentation of virus secretion by the human immunodeficiency virus type 1 Vpu protein is cell type independent and occurs in cultured human primary macrophages and lymphocytes.

The human immunodeficiency virus type 1-specific Vpu protein is a small integral membrane phosphoprotein that induces degradation of the virus receptor CD4 in the endoplasmic reticulum and, independently, increases the release of progeny virions from infected cells. To address the importance of Vpu for virus replication in primary human cells such as peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) and monocyte-derived macrophages (MDM), we used three different sets of monocyte-tropic molecular clones of human immunodeficiency virus type 1: a primary isolate, AD8+, and two chimeric variants of the T-cell-tropic isolate NL4-3 carrying the env determinants of either AD8+ or SF162 monocyte-tropic primary isolates. Isogenic variants of these chimeric viruses were constructed to express either wild-type Vpu or various mutants of Vpu. The effects of these mutations in the vpu gene on virus particle secretion from infected MDM or PBMC were assessed by determination of the release of virion-associated reverse transcriptase into culture supernatants, Western blot (immunoblot) analysis of pelleted virions, and steady-state or pulse-chase metabolic labeling. Wild-type Vpu increased virus release four- to sixfold in MDM and two- to threefold in PBMC, while nonphosphorylated Vpu and a C-terminal truncation mutant of Vpu were partially active on virus release in primary cells. These results demonstrate that Vpu regulates virus release in primary lymphocyte and macrophage cultures in a similar manner and to a similar extent to those previously observed in HeLa cells or CD4+ T-cell lines. Thus, our findings provide evidence that Vpu functions in a variety of human cells, both primary cells and continuous cell lines, and mutations in Vpu affect its biological activity independent of the cell type and virus isolate used.