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J Virol, May 1998, p. 3658-3665, Vol. 72, No. 5
0022-538X/98/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1998, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.

The Roles of Pol and Env in the Assembly Pathway of Human Foamy Virus

David N. Baldwin and Maxine L. Linial*

Division of Basic Sciences, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, Washington 98104, and Department of Microbiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195

Received 8 August 1997/Accepted 3 February 1998

Human foamy virus (HFV) is the prototype of the Spumavirus genus of retroviruses. These viruses have a genomic organization close to that of other complex retroviruses but have similarities to hepadnaviruses such as human hepatitis B virus (HBV). Both HFV and HBV express their Pol protein independently of their structural proteins. Retroviruses and hepadnaviruses differ in their requirements for particle assembly and genome packaging. Assembly of retroviral particles containing RNA genomes requires only the Gag structural protein. The Pol protein is not required for capsid assembly, and the Env surface glycoprotein is not required for release of virions from the cell. In contrast, assembly of extracellular HBV particles containing DNA requires core structural protein and polymerase (P protein) for assembly of nucleocapsids and requires surface glycoproteins for release from the cell. We investigated the requirements for synthesis of extracellular HFV particles by constructing mutants with either the pol or env gene deleted. We found that the Pol protein is dispensable for production of extracellular particles containing viral nucleic acid. In the absence of Env, intracellular particles are synthesized but few or no extracellular particles could be detected. Thus, foamy virus assembly is distinct from that of other reverse transcriptase-encoding mammalian viruses.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Division of Basic Sciences, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, A3-015, 1100 Fairview Ave. N., P.O. Box 19024, Seattle, WA 98109-1024. Phone: (206) 667-4442. Fax: (206) 667-5939. E-mail: mlinial{at}fhcrc.org.

J Virol, May 1998, p. 3658-3665, Vol. 72, No. 5
0022-538X/98/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1998, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.


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Copyright © 1998 by the American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.