Implications for Therapy

Simian immunodeficiency viruses (SIVs) are a large group of lentiviruses that naturally infect more than 40 African nonhuman primate (NHP) species. SIV prevalence in the wild ranges from 2% to more than 80% in different species. The simian lentiviruses form one of the five serogroups of the Lentiviridae genus, consisting of three species: human immunodeficiency virus 1 (HIV-1), human immunodeficiency virus 2 (HIV-2), and SIV. The SIVs from naturally infected NHPs of African origin hosts are designated by a three-letter abbreviation of the host primate species. In addition, the number of SIVs naturally infecting different African NHP species is high. There are major intrinsic limitations to the development of animal models in different species of African NHP hosts: numerous SIVs are only known from sequences, therefore they cannot be used in pathogenesis/treatment studies; numerous African NHPs that are natural hosts of SIVs are extremely endangered which generally precludes invasive studies in these hosts; and there are no currently available colonies for most of the African NHPs.