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Journal of Virology, January 1999, p. 128-139, Vol. 73, No. 1
0022-538X/99/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1999, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.

Persistent Hz-1 Virus Infection in Insect Cells: Evidence for Insertion of Viral DNA into Host Chromosomes and Viral Infection in a Latent Status

Chi-Long Lin,1,2,dagger Jin-Ching Lee,2,3 Shih-Shun Chen,2,3 H. Alan Wood,4 Ming-Liang Li,1 Chih-Fen Li,2 and Yu-Chan Chao2,*

Department of Biology, National Taiwan Normal University,1 Institute of Molecular Biology, Academia Sinica,2 and Graduate Institute of Life Sciences, National Defense Medical Center,3 Taipei 115, Taiwan, Republic of China, and Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 148534

Received 8 June 1998/Accepted 21 September 1998

Persistent/latent viral infections of insect cells are a prominent though poorly understood phenomenon. In this study, the long-term association between the Hz-1 virus and insect host cells, conventionally referred to as persistent viral infection, is described. With the aid of a newly developed fluorescent cell-labeling system, we found that productive viral replication occurs by spontaneous viral reactivation in fewer than 0.2% of persistently infected cell lines over a 5-day period. Once viral reactivation takes place, the host cell dies. The persistently infected cells contain various amounts of viral DNA, and, in an extreme case, up to 16% of the total DNA isolated from infected cells could be of viral origin. Both pulsed-field gel electrophoresis and in situ hybridization experiments showed that some of these viral DNA molecules are inserted into the host chromosomes but that the rest of viral DNA copies are free from host chromosomes. Thus, Hz-1 virus is the first nonretroviral insect virus known to insert its genome into the host chromosome during the infection process. These data also suggest that the previously described persistent infection of Hz-1 virus in insect cells should be more accurately referred to as latent viral infection.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Institute of Molecular Biology, Academia Sinica, Nankang, Taipei, Taiwan 115, Republic of China. Phone: 886-2-2788-2697. Fax: 886-2-2788-2697 or 886-2-2782-6085. E-mail: mbycchao{at}ccvax.sinica.edu.tw.

dagger Present address: Graduate Institute of Life Sciences, National Defense Medical Center, and Institute of Molecular Biology, Academia Sinica, Taipei 115, Taiwan, Republic of China.

Journal of Virology, January 1999, p. 128-139, Vol. 73, No. 1
0022-538X/99/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1999, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.


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