FIG. 2.
Replication profiles of the wild-type HIV-1 with or without an insert. (A) Replication kinetic assay with MT-4 cells was conducted with HIVNL4-3 and HIVNL4-3 clones with various inserts. The production of p24 Gag protein by MT-4 cells into the culture supernatants was monitored over 9 days. (B) Competitive HIV replication assay. Six pairs of HIVNL4-3 and HIVNL4-3 clones with an insert were propagated in MT-4 cells, and the percent proportion of each virus was determined over seven passages. When the cells harvested at the conclusion of the last passage were subjected to DNA extraction and direct DNA sequencing, no deletions or additional amino acid changes in the p17/p24 and p1/p6 Gag cleavage sites were identified.