Primary cultures of rhesus placental syncytiotrophoblasts are permissive for SIV infection

Abstract
Primary cultures of rhesus syncytiotrophoblasts incubated with SIVdeltaB670, SIVmac251, or SIVmac239 produced readily detectable virus in the supernatant for up to three weeks after infection. At four weeks, cells generally failed to release virus but placental cell lysates and placental cells cocultured for 24 hours with uninfected CEM × 174 cells were able to transmit infection. The presence of virus was confirmed by electron microscopy and PCR amplification of viral sequences from trophoblast genomic DNA. SIV p27 antigen was localized by immunostaining primarily in syncytiotrophoblasts.