Molecular biological comparison of lntiviriruses isolated from animals.

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

The purpose of the present studies is to compare the molecular biological nature of lentiviruese isolated from various animals. In these studies, we tried to find the genetic properities commonly observed among lentiviruese and the mechanisms for expression of pathogenesis of the viruses in vivo at a molecular level. We report here about feline immunodeficiency virus as a representative.1) When compared the nucleotide sequences of LTR of FIV isolated from Japan, Australia and U.S., Japanese isolates were considerable genetic devergence from both Australian and U.S.idolates. These results showed that FIV from Japan is phylogenetically distinct from those from the two countries.2) The biological proparities of two dofferent strains of FIV were compared by using chimeric LTR or chimeric FIV.Although there is no difference in the basal promoter activity of LTR, efficient viurs growth in CRFK cells and MYA-1 cells was found to be regulated by the gag, pol, vif and ORF-A regions, while viral determinants of infectivity for CRFK cells and syncytium formation and cytopathogenicity in MYA-1 cells were located in the env and rev regions.3) By using ORF-A mutant virus, the FIV ORF-A gene was found to facilitate efficient vius replication in established T-cell lines and peripheral blood lymphocytes.4) FIV TM1 strain could not replicate in feline CD4-expressing CRFK cells and FIV env protein fail to bind soluble feline CD4. The results indicate that FIV does not utilize feline CD4 molecule as a receptor for infection to the cells.