Patent ID: 11920147
Assignee: CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY
Field: Biotechnology (Chemistry)
Classification: CPC C | IPC A  C

Claim 0:
1. A method of enhancing the infectivity of recombinant HIV-1 particles produced from a cell transfected with an HIV-1 lentiviral vector construct, the method comprising:
administering to the cell an HIV-1 lentiviral vector construct comprising a genomic RNA packaging enhancer (GRPE) element and HIV-1 lentiviral nucleic acid sequences sufficient for reverse transcription and packaging in the cell, the GRPE element comprising a nucleic acid sequence encoding the P2 and P3 stem loops in the gag p1-p6 domain of the HIV-1 RNA wild-type genome, wherein the GRPE element maintains P2 and P3 stem loop structure and includes two or fewer nucleotide substitutions in the nucleic acid sequence encoding the P2 and P3 stem loops in the gag p1-p6 domain of the HIV-1 RNA wild-type genome, wherein the HIV-1 lentiviral nucleic acid sequences are devoid of a gag matrix/capsid/nucleocapsid (MA/CA/NC) coding sequence, wherein the presence of the GRPE in the HIV-1 lentiviral vector construct increases HIV-1 genomic RNA packaging in the recombinant HIV-1 particles produced by the transfected cell, and wherein the increase in HIV-1 genomic RNA packaging is positively correlated to the infectivity of the recombinant HIV-1 particles released from the transfected cell.