Comparative Analysis of Differential Cellular Transcriptome and Proteome Regulation by HIV-1 and HIV-2 Pseudovirions in the Early Phase of Infection

In spite of the similar structural and genomic organization of human immunodeficiency viruses type 1 and 2 (HIV-1 and HIV-2), striking differences exist between them in terms of replication dynamics and clinical manifestation of infection. Although the pathomechanism of HIV-1 infection is well characterized, relatively few data are available regarding HIV-2 viral replication and its interaction with host-cell proteins during the early phase of infection. We utilized proteo-transcriptomic analyses to determine differential genome expression and proteomic changes induced by transduction with HIV-1/2 pseudovirions during 8, 12 and 26 h time-points in HEK-293T cells. We show that alteration in the cellular milieu was indeed different between the two pseudovirions. The significantly higher number of genes altered by HIV-2 in the first two time-points suggests a more diverse yet subtle effect on the host cell, preparing the infected cell for integration and latency. On the other hand, GO analysis showed that, while HIV-1 induced cellular oxidative stress and had a greater effect on cellular metabolism, HIV-2 mostly affected genes involved in cell adhesion, extracellular matrix organization or cellular differentiation. Proteomics analysis revealed that HIV-2 significantly downregulated the expression of proteins involved in mRNA processing and translation. Meanwhile, HIV-1 influenced the cellular level of translation initiation factors and chaperones. Our study provides insight into the understudied replication cycle of HIV-2 and enriches our knowledge about the use of HIV-based lentiviral vectors in general.