Genetically divergent strains of simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) from macaques (mac), chimpanzees, and sooty mangabeys (SM) efficiently used rhesus and human CCR5 (R5), but not CXCR4 (xR4), for cell entry. Thus far, however, no studies have characterized primary SIVsm strains for their use of coreceptors derived from their own natural host. Coreceptor usage of two primary, blood-derived SIVsm isolates, SIVsmSL92b and SIVsmFNS from naturally infected sooty mangabeys, was determined. Primary SIVsm efficiently used SM-CCR5 expressed on HOS.CD4 and U87.CD4 cells. Sequence polymorphisms in CCR5 found in four sooty mangabeys did not alter viral entry. Unlike primary rhesus blood-derived R5-tropic SIVmac251, primary SM blood-derived R5-tropic SIVsm was strongly CD4 dependent. The SM-CXCR4 gene was fully functional for xR4-tropic primate lentiviruses, but was not used by primary SIVsm. Therefore, the lack of xR4 tropism among naturally occurring SIVsm strains was not due to CxCR4 gene defects in the natural host. SIVmac derived from four macaques with AIDS also did not use macaque- or SM-derived CXCR4, showing that xR4 tropism did not develop during progression to disease as for humans infected with HIV-1. Three of four primary HIV-2 strains used CCR5 from human, sooty mangabey, and macaque. The fourth, HIV-27924A, obtained from a patient with AIDS, was xR4-tropic. Because SIVmac is most closely related to HIV-2, SIVmac might be expected to rnimic tropisms of HIV-2 infections. However, the correlation between xR4 tropism and AIDS may be a species-specific phenomenon limited to humans. The R5-tropic primary SIVsm and HIV-2 strains grew in CCR5-negative human PBMC, consistent with their use of non-CCR5 coreceptors. However, primary SIVsmSL92b did not use non-CCR5 coreceptors efficiently. The two primary SIVsm isolates replicated poorly in CEMx174 cells, which do not express CCR5, compared to CCR5-positive PM1 cells. SIVmac grew equally well in both cell lines. The findings show that SM-chemokine receptors are fully functional for virus entry and that multicoreceptor tropism is a common property of primary lentiviruses within the SIVsm/HIV-2 subfamily.