RESEARCH

Xenotransplantation using pigs as the source of tissue is a promising strategy to overcome the current donor organ shortage for transplantation. Unfortunately, the potential of a cross-species transmission of infection with porcine endogenous retroviruses (PERV) has raised concerns world-wide and slowed progress in the field. While most human cell lines are capable of sustaining productive infection by PERV, all the non-human primate (NHP) cell lines we have tested including African green monkey kidney cells (Vero) have been found to be non-permissive for PERV replication. Impaired targeting of the PERV Gag molecules to the plasma membrane in Vero cells, observed by confocal microscopy, suggests that the defect may occur at the retroviral assembly stage. This was also consistent with electron microscopy studies demonstrating incomplete viral assembly at the Vero cell membrane.

We propose to investigate the molecular mechanism of the PERV viral assembly defect using various techniques including cDNA library screening and proteomics.