title: Relative activity of the feline immunodeficiency virus promoter in feline and primate cell lines.
abstract: The feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) long terminal repeat (LTR), compared with some primate lentiviral LTRs, is quite a strong basal promoter. However, it seems to be highly species-specific in function and generally not very efficient in cells of non-feline origin. This study systematically explored the function of the FIV LTR in simian Cos cells compared with its activity in feline and human cells. Our studies, using biologically relevant two- and three-plasmid trans complementation assays followed by semi-quantitative reverse transcriptase PCR, show that the FIV LTR is functional in Cos cells. The results of the Cos experiment are different from previously reported literature and suggest that the strain specificity of the FIV LTR is an important determinant of whether the LTR will be functional in a particular cell type.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Microbiology, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences (FMHS), The United Arab Emirates University, P.O. Box 17666, Al Ain, United Arab Emirates (UAE).
authors.forename: Farah
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Mustafa
authors.forename: Preethi
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Jayanth
authors.forename: Pretty S
authors.initials: PS
authors.lastname: Phillip
authors.forename: Akela
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ghazawi
authors.forename: Russell D
authors.initials: RD
authors.lastname: Schmidt
authors.forename: Kathy A
authors.initials: KA
authors.lastname: Lew
authors.forename: Tahir A
authors.initials: TA
authors.lastname: Rizvi
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D019556:COS Cells; D002415:Cats; D002460:Cell Line; D016089:Immunodeficiency Virus, Feline / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D011401:Promoter Regions, Genetic; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; D014162:Transfection; D014779:Virus Replication