Human immunodeficiency virus 1 Targeted Locus (Loci)

Glycosylation of host and viral proteins is an important post-translational modification needed to ensure correct function of glycoproteins. For this reason, we asked whether inhibition of O-glycosylation during HIV in vitro replication could affect HIV infectivity and replication rates. We used Benzyl-2-acetamido-2-deoxy-a-D-galactopyranoside (BAGN), a compound that has been widely used to inhibit O-glycosylation in several cell lines. Pre-treatment and culture of PHA blast target cells with BAGN increased the percentage of HIV infected cells and the viral particles in culture supernatants compared to BAGN free cultures. BAGN improved viral outgrowth kinetics in 66% of the samples tested, including samples from HIV controllers and subjects in whom no virus could be expanded in the absence of BAGN. Sequencing of the isolated virus indicated no skewing of viral quasi-species populations when compared to BAGN-free culture conditions.