Evidence that ecotropic murine leukemia virus contamination in TZM-bl cells does not affect the outcome of neutralizing antibody assays with human immunodeficiency virus type 1

J Virol. 2009 Aug;83(16):8289-92. doi: 10.1128/JVI.00709-09. Epub 2009 May 27.

Abstract

The TZM-bl cell line that is commonly used to assess neutralizing antibodies against human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) was recently reported to be contaminated with an ecotropic murine leukemia virus (MLV) (Y. Takeuchi, M. O. McClure, and M. Pizzato, J. Virol. 82:12585-12588, 2008), raising questions about the validity of results obtained with this cell line. Here we confirm this observation and show that HIV-1 neutralization assays performed with a variety of serologic reagents in a similar cell line that does not harbor MLV yield results that are equivalent to those obtained in TZM-bl cells. We conclude that MLV contamination has no measurable effect on HIV-1 neutralization when TZM-bl cells are used as targets for infection.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural

MeSH terms

  • Cell Line / immunology
  • Cell Line / virology*
  • HIV Infections / immunology*
  • HIV Infections / virology
  • HIV-1 / chemistry
  • HIV-1 / immunology*
  • Humans
  • Leukemia Virus, Murine*
  • Neutralization Tests*
  • Specimen Handling