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Journal of Virology, June 2001, p. 5129-5140, Vol. 75, No. 11
Department of Veterinary Sciences, The
University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Bastrop, Texas
78602,1 and Department of
Carcinogenesis, Science Park-Research Division, Smithville, Texas
789572
Received 21 December 2000/Accepted 14 March 2001
Development of safe and effective gene transfer systems is critical
to the success of gene therapy protocols for human diseases. Currently,
several primate lentivirus-based gene transfer systems, such as those
based on human and simian immunodeficiency viruses (HIV/SIV), are being
tested; however, their use in humans raises safety concerns, such as
the generation of replication-competent viruses through recombination
with related endogenous retroviruses or retrovirus-like elements. Due
to the greater phylogenetic distance from primate lentiviruses, feline
immunodeficiency virus (FIV) is becoming the lentivirus of choice for
human gene transfer systems. However, the safety of FIV-based vector
systems has not been tested experimentally. Since lentiviruses such as
HIV-1 and SIV have been shown to cross-package their RNA genomes, we
tested the ability of FIV RNA to get cross-packaged into primate
lentivirus particles such as HIV-1 and SIV, as well as a nonlentiviral
retrovirus such as Mason-Pfizer monkey virus (MPMV), and vice versa.
Our results reveal that FIV RNA can be cross-packaged by primate
lentivirus particles such as HIV-1 and SIV and vice versa; however, a
nonlentivirus particle such as MPMV is unable to package FIV RNA.
Interestingly, FIV particles can package MPMV RNA but cannot propagate
the vector RNA further for other steps of the retrovirus life cycle.
These findings reveal that diverse retroviruses are functionally more similar than originally thought and suggest that upon coinfection of
the same host, cross- or copackaging may allow distinct retroviruses to
generate chimeric variants with unknown pathogenic potential.
0022-538X/01/$04.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/JVI.75.11.5129-5140.2001
Copyright © 2001, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
Primate and Feline Lentivirus Vector RNA Packaging
and Propagation by Heterologous Lentivirus Virions
*
Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of
Veterinary Sciences, The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer
Center, 650 Cool Water Dr., Bastrop, TX 78602. Phone: (512) 321-3991. Fax: (512) 332-5344. E-mail: tarfm{at}aol.com.
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