Figure 1.
Quantitative real-time RT-PCR to measure relative levels of SIVmneCl8 and SIVmne027. The real-time RT-PCR assay was developed to detect two regions of the viral genome, a conserved gag sequence and an env V1 sequence specific to SIVmneCl8. The relative amount of SIVmneCl8 was determined from the amount of viral RNA detected by the SIVmneCl8 env V1 specific primer/probe set compared to the total amount of viral RNA detected by the primer/probe set recognizing the conserved gag sequence. Single-virus infections of activated pig-tail PBL with SIVmneCl8 (a) or SIVmne027 (b) shows that only SIVmneCl8 is recognized by the env V1 primer/probe, even when the overall viral RNA level is greater than 1 × 109 viral RNA copies/ml of SIVmne027.