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Journal of Virology, March 2002, p. 3045-3048, Vol. 76, No. 6
0022-538X/02/$04.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/JVI.76.6.3045-3048.2002
Copyright © 2002, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
Porcine Endogenous Retrovirus Transmission Characteristics of an Inbred Herd of Miniature Swine
Beth A. Oldmixon,1 James C. Wood,1 Thomas A. Ericsson,1 Carolyn A. Wilson,2 Mary E. White-Scharf,3 Goran Andersson,3 Julia L. Greenstein,1 Henk-Jan Schuurman,1 and Clive Patience1,3*
Immerge BioTherapeutics, Inc.,1
BioTransplant, Inc., Charlestown, Massachusetts,3
Division of Cellular and Gene Therapies, Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, Federal Drug Administration, Bethesda, Maryland2
Received 1 October 2001/
Accepted 19 December 2001

ABSTRACT
Here we report the identification of inbred miniature swine
that failed to produce human-tropic replication-competent porcine
endogenous retroviruses (HTRC PERVs), using in vitro coculture
assays. When HTRC PERVs were isolated from transmitting animals,
all were recombinant viruses, with the receptor-binding domain
of PERV-A combining with PERV-C-related sequences.

TEXT
The number of patients awaiting transplantation increases every
year due to a lack of suitable donors. Although the xenotransplantation
of porcine tissues has the potential to alleviate this shortage
(
5), there remain certain risks associated with the use of pigs
as donor animals. In particular, the inadvertent transmission
of porcine microorganisms to the recipient of a xenograft is
a concern (
1,
7,
14,
17,
20). Because porcine endogenous retroviruses
(PERVs) are unaffected by barrier derivation technologies and
can infect human cells in vitro (
13), these viruses are perceived
as a major safety concern.
Three replication-competent classes of PERVs (PERV-A, -B, and -C) have been identified in the genomic DNA of pigs and porcine cell lines (9, 18). The PERV-A and PERV-B classes can infect human and pig cells in vitro. PERV-C is not able to infect human cells but can replicate in porcine cell lines (13, 18). Although the majority of PERV loci in porcine DNA are most likely noninfectious (3, 4, 8, 9), human-tropic viruses have been isolated from porcine cell lines as well as primary tissues (2, 11-13, 16, 18, 21). Interestingly, all clones of replication-competent PERV-A and PERV-B classes with significant infectious titers have been isolated from PK15 cells or cell lines infected by viruses released from PK15 cells (6, 8, 19). Conversely, all PERV clones derived from primary pig cells have had extremely low titers and limited replication competence (6, 8, 19).
We investigated the PERV transmission characteristics of a unique inbred herd of miniature swine by using in vitro coculture assays. Three independent swine leukocyte antigen (SLA) haplotypes (a, c, and d) and three classes of recombinant SLA haplotypes (g, h, and k) are maintained within this herd. Due to its proven sensitivity, the coculture of porcine peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) with the human 293 cell line (6, 8, 10, 21, 22) and the porcine cell line ST-IOWA (10, 13, 21) has been used to compare the relative infectivity of PERVs produced from different pigs and the replication competence of PERV. In addition to these systems, we varied both the producer cells and target cell lines used in the coculture assays in an attempt to identify conditions under which additional human-tropic replication-competent (HTRC) PERVs could be identified. Pig aortic endothelial cells were investigated as an alternative primary cell source of PERV because single polynucleotide polymorphisms in PERV long terminal repeats (LTRs) have been reported that might confer differential locus responsiveness to activation by phytohemagglutinin and phorbol myristate acetate or tumor necrosis factor alpha (15). Production of PERVs from pig aortic endothelial cells was lower than that from PBMC and resulted in less-reliable coculture assays (data not shown). Therefore, only those assays using PBMC as the primary producer cells are reported below.
Because of the presence of PERV-C in miniature swine, we used the porcine cell line ST-IOWA and the human cell line HT1080 as target cell lines for the transmission assays. The HT1080 cell line is of particular interest because it is the only human cell line that has been reported to express a receptor for PERV-C (18). Although all ST-IOWA coculture assays became infected by replication-competent PERV-C released from the PBMC, infection was not detected with the HT1080 cell line (Table 1). Although it cannot be excluded that PERV-C may have required an extended adaptation period for its replication to become productive in the HT1080 cells, tissue culture-adapted classes of PERV-A and PERV-B, but not PERV-C, were capable of replication in this cell line, albeit at low levels (data not shown). In addition, it has recently been observed that retrovirus pseudotype particles lacking all env proteins can also infect HT1080 cells (Y. Takeuchi and F.-L. Cosset, personal communication). This suggests that the PERV-C infectivity reported for this human cell line is the result of nonspecific uptake mechanisms and therefore that no independent human-tropic capacity can currently be associated with PERV-C.
Animals representing all lines of miniature swine were identified
whose PBMC transmitted HTRC PERVs to 293 cells (Table
1). However,
the frequency of transmission within the haplotype lines varied
markedly (Table
1). In particular, two lines of miniature swine
(SLA
d/d and SLA
g/g) showed low incidences of transmission. It
is noteworthy that the three SLA
d/d animals showing transmission
are closely related (one sow and two offspring) and, similarly,
that the single transmission-positive animal identified within
the SLA
g/g subline is from a line of animals distinct from the
nontransmitting SLA
g/g animals. To assess the reliability of
the coculture assays, and therefore the significance of negative
transmission results with 293 cells, repeat cocultures for individual
animals were initiated using PBMC isolated from additional blood
samples. Although a low false-negative rate in the assay system
was identified, animals were identified that consistently produced
transmitting or nontransmitting phenotypes, following repeat
testing on up to four occasions (Table
2). The identification
of transmitting animals within all of the lines of SLA-defined
miniature swine indicates that critical PERV proviruses are
unlikely to be closely linked to the SLA on chromosome 7.
To gain information regarding the genomic organization of the
HTRC PERVs produced by transmitting miniature swine, we examined
the PERV proviruses present in eight independently infected
293 cultures using LTR-to-LTR PCR. In total, 127 PERV clones
were analyzed by sequencing regions of their
gag,
pol, and
env genes. All clones possessed
gag,
pol, and
env transmembrane
(TM) sequences most closely related to PERV-C and the
env receptor-binding
domain of PERV-A. To determine whether recombination events
were required to generate the PERV-A-PERV-C hybrid sequences
detected in the HTRC PERVs, we analyzed the sequence of PERV
loci present in the genomic DNA of miniature swine. PERV-A clones
were generated using LTR-to-LTR PCR, and regions of the
gag,
pol, and
env genes of nominally full-length clones were sequenced.
Analysis indicated that many of these PERV-A clones possessed
g
ag and
pol genes most closely related to PERV-C, suggesting
that the PERV-C
gag-
pol and PERV-A
env hybrid sequences were
derived directly from genomic sequences. Alignment of the
pol-
env gene sequences of approximately 30 HTRC-PERV clones indicated
that three distinct families of PERV-C
pol and PERV-A
env sequences
were present and is suggestive of only a limited number of PERV-A
loci having contributed toward the formation of HTRC PERVs in
the samples tested (Fig
1). In contrast, PERV-A variable region
A (VRA)-PERV-C TM hybrid sequences were not detected in the
genomic DNA of miniature swine by PCR (Fig.
2), indicating that
they were being generated by recombination during the in vitro
coculture period. Interestingly, although PERV-A loci with long
env open reading frames (ORFs) were identified in miniature
swine DNA, their
env TM ORFs were disrupted within a few residues
of the carboxy terminus. In HTRC PERVs, this region was replaced
by in-frame PERV-C sequences that repaired the TM ORF, suggesting
a growth advantage of the recombinant viruses over the truncated
PERV-A viruses or rescue of defective sequences during the in
vitro coculture period. Further experiments are required to
identify the interactions driving these recombination events.
In this regard, it is noteworthy that an
env TM truncation has
also been identified in a PERV-A clone derived from PK15 cells
(
8). Cells infected by this virus produced only transient reverse
transcriptase (RT) activities at levels approximately 1,000-fold
below those infected by tissue culture-adapted PERVs (
6,
8,
19) and lower than those identified with porcine cells that
behave as if uninfected by PERVs (
13,
18,
21,
22). While such
minimal replication competence can be demonstrated using cloned
viral DNA in combination with highly sensitive RT detection
systems, it remains to be determined if such clones can be isolated
directly from primary pig cells using coculture systems.
In summary, we report the in vitro PERV transmission characteristics
of a unique herd of inbred miniature swine and demonstrate that
animals can be identified that consistently do not transmit
HTRC PERVs. When HTRC PERVs were isolated from transmitting
miniature swine, they were shown to be recombinant viruses derived
from PERV-A and PERV-C. It will be important to determine whether
a transmitting phenotype is inherited in a strictly Mendelian
manner or whether additional factors such as exogenous PERV
transmission between animals affects the production of HTRC
PERV by pigs.
Nucleotide sequence accession numbers
Representative members of full-length HTRC PERV env sequences (accession no. AF417227 through AF417232), HTRC PERV-A and genomic PERV locus gag sequences (accession no. AF417210 through AF417221), and near-full-length genomic PERV loci env sequences (accession no. AF417222 through AF417226) have been deposited at GenBank.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We thank Jay Fishman and Gillian Langford for expert discussions,
Gabi Cruz for excellent technical assistance, and Leanne Duncan
for administrative support.
This research was supported in part by a Small Business Innovation Research program grant (1R43AI48349-01).

FOOTNOTES
* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Immerge BioTherapeutics, Inc., Building 75, 3rd Ave., Charlestown, MA 02129. Phone: (617) 241-5565. Fax: (617) 241-0539. E-mail:
clive.patience{at}immergebt.com.


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Journal of Virology, March 2002, p. 3045-3048, Vol. 76, No. 6
0022-538X/02/$04.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/JVI.76.6.3045-3048.2002
Copyright © 2002, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
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