%0 Journal Article %A Vartanian, Jean-Pierre %A Sala, Monica %A Henry, Michel %A Wain-Hobson, Simon %A Meyerhans, Andreas %T Manganese cations increase the mutation rate of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 ex vivo %D 1999 %J Journal of General Virology, %V 80 %N 8 %P 1983-1986 %@ 1465-2099 %R https://doi.org/10.1099/0022-1317-80-8-1983 %I Microbiology Society, %X Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) reverse transcription is an error-prone process with an overall mutation rate of ∼3·4×10−5 per base per replication cycle. This rate can be modulated by changes in different components of the retrotranscription reaction. In particular, in vitro substitution of magnesium cations (Mg2+) by manganese cations (Mn2+) has been shown to increase misincorporation of deoxynucleotide triphosphates (dNTPs) and to alter substrate specificity. Here, it is shown that Mn2+ also increases the HIV mutation rate ex vivo. Treatment of permissive cells with Mn2+ and subsequent HIV infection resulted in at least 6-fold and 10-fold increases in the mutant and mutation frequencies respectively, thus illustrating a further example of how to influence HIV genetic variation. %U https://www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/journal/jgv/10.1099/0022-1317-80-8-1983