HIV-1 can infect northern pig-tailed macaques(Macaca leonina) and form viral reservoirs in vivo

Viral reservoirs of HIV-1 are a major obstacle for curing AIDS. The novel animal models that can be directly infected with HIV-1 will contribute to develop effective strategies for eradicating infections.Here, we inoculated 4 northern pig-tailed macaques(NPM) with the HIV-1 strain HIV-1NL4.3and monitored the infection for approximately 3 years(150 weeks). The HIV-1-infected NPMs showed transient viremia for about 10 weeks after infection. However, cell-associated proviral DNA and viral RNA persisted in the peripheral blood and lymphoid organs for about 3 years. Moreover, replication-competent HIV-1could be successfully recovered from peripheral blood mononuclear cells(PBMCs) during long-term infection. The numbers of resting CD4+T cells in HIV-1 infected NPMs harboring proviruses fell within a range of 2-to 3-log10per million cells, and these proviruses could be reactivated both ex vivo and in vivo in response to co-stimulation with the latency-reversing agents JQ1 and prostratin. Our results suggested that NPMs can be infected with HIV-1 and a long-term viral reservoir was formed in NPMs,which might serve as a potential model for HIV-1 reservoir research.