Fig. 1

Lentiviral constructs and Vpu amino acid alignments. a The lentiviral vector DHIV, or “defective” HIV, was derived from the HIV-1_NL4-3 sequence and cut between two BglII sites to efficiently delete envelope/gp120 (gray box with dashed lines, red X marks) but maintain in-frame Tat, Rev and RRE ORFs. The constructs used in this study were derived from the DHIV backbone and are as follows: i the GFP gene in place of Nef. ii Replacement of NL4-3 Vpu with a primary Vpu isolate or iii introduction of a frame shift mutation within Vpu and Nef. a DHIV-GFP (Vpu+/Nef−). b DHIV-GFP (Vpu−/Nef−). c DHIV-GFP WITO (Vpu+/Nef−). d DHIV-GFP WARO (Vpu+/Nef−). e DHIV. f DHIV (Vpu−). g DHIV (Nef−). h Amino acid sequence alignment of Vpu proteins from a transmitted founder (T/F;WITO) and chronic carrier (CC; WARO) compared to NL4-3 Vpu. An asterisk indicates fully conserved residues; colon represents amino acid conservation with strongly similar properties; period designates amino acid conservation with weakly similar properties. Highlighted residues mark amino acid differences between the three strains.