Human T cell leukemia virus type I is resistant to the antiviral effects of APOBEC3

The objective of this Study was to investigate whether the anti-retroviral cellular cytidine deaminase, APOBEC3, inhibits the infectivity of human T cell leukemia virus type I (HTLV-I). Sufficient quantities of cell-free HTLV-I virion for infection were obtained by cotransfecting cells with HTLV-I and human or murine APOBEC3 expression vectors along with a plasmid expressing Tax. HTLV-I Viruses containing these deaminases were still capable of infecting 293T and MOLT-4 cells. No G-to-A Mutations, which are characteristic of cytidine deaminases, were observed in the HTLV-I genome. These results suggest that the enzymatic activity of APOBEC3 may not contribute Substantially to antiviral responses to HTLV-I. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.