Transduction of Cellular Sequence by a Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1-Derived Vector

During studies examining the rate of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) mutation in a single cycle of replication, the 5′ long terminal repeat of one progeny provirus was found to contain an insertion of 147 bp including an entire tRNA [Formula: see text] sequence as well as an additional 66 bp insertion of nonviral origin. Database searches revealed that 65 of 66 bp aligned with the human CpG island sequence found on chromosomes 6, 14, and 17. Therefore it seems probable that it is of human cellular sequence origin and was transduced by HIV-1. This is the first demonstration that HIV-1 can capture a cellular sequence. The site of integration of the parental provirus was mapped to chromosome 1p32.1. Sequence with homology to the transduced CpG island was not found on chromosome 1, suggesting that the transduced cellular sequence was not linked to the site of viral integration.