Using the differential display technique, we are looking for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-induced cellular genes (Liang and Pardee, Science 1992;257:967-71). These genes may be important in control of viral infection, as targets for antiviral therapy or in further understanding of the infection process. Total RNA from both infected macrophage and uninfected macrophage was obtained from Howard Gendelman. Several pairs of primers were used to isolate ~150 differentially expressed fragments. Northern analysis confirmed the differential expression of 18 of these fragments. These polymerase chain reaction (PCR) fragments have been cloned and sequenced. One is NFkappa- B which is differentially expressed in infected and uninfected T-cells, but not in infected and uninfected macrophage. Three have sequence homologies with expressed sequence tagged cDNAs. The remainder of the clones have little or no homology to known sequences. We are currently using anchor ligated PCR to obtain full-length clones for further identification and characterization. Further analysis will depend on full-length sequence analysis but may include transfection to assess affect on cell growth or HIV infection. In addition, it would be interesting to analyze the affect of antisense on the infection process.
