Molecular reprogramming of primary human resting memory CD4+ T cells by HIV-1 Vpr

Resting CD4+ T cells are infected by HIV-1 in vivo, however are refractory to cell-free HIV-1 infection in vitro. We show that they are efficiently infected by cell-to-cell spread. To allow resting T cell infection, uninfected resting target cells were co-cultured with infected donor T cells. Cells were infected with HIV-1 WT, dVpr or left mock treated and cultures with or without IL7. After 72h of co-culture, resting target cells were recovered by flow cytometry sorting and total RNA was extracted. RNASequencing revealed global transcriptomic reprogramming of resting memory T cells by HIV-1 Vpr.