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The pathogenesis of AIDS: lessons from the SIV-Macaque model
- Publication date
- 22 December 1999
- Publisher
- In the mid-eighties it became apparent that a human retrovirus of the lentivirus subfamily, later designated human immunodeficiency virus type I (HIV-l), was the etiological
agent of the acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). This disease was
characterised by unusual opportunistic infections, neurologic abnormalities, gastrointestinal
disorders and malignancies due to an insidious decay of the immune system. The
urgent need to gain insight in certain aspects of the pathobiology of this infection demanded
relevant animal models. As a consequence of this need the search for similar lentivimses
present in other animal species intensified. Several lentivimses have been identified to
induce AIDS-like disease in a vruiety of animals , however, only simian
immunodeficiency virus (SIV) and feline inununodeficiency virus (FIV), wWcb cause
AIDS-like symptoms in macaques and cats, respectively, have been commonly used as
animal models.
In this chapter an overview of the molecular biology of SIV and the utilisation of the
SIV -macaque model for AIDS research is given. In prulicular, the use of molecular clones
of SIV to elucidate the pathogenesis of AIDS is described.