Abstract
Apolipoprotein B mRNA-editing enzyme catalytic polypeptide-like 3 (APOBEC3; A3) proteins comprise an important family of restriction factors that produce hypermutations on proviral DNA and are able to limit virus replication. Vif, an accessory protein present in almost all lentiviruses, counteracts the antiviral A3 activity. Seven haplotypes of APOBEC3Z3 (A3Z3) were described in domestic cats (hap I–VII), and in-vitro studies have demonstrated that these proteins reduce infectivity of vif-defective feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV). Moreover, hap V is resistant to vif-mediated degradation. However, studies on the effect of A3Z3 in FIV-infected cats have not been developed. Here, the correlation between APOBEC A3Z3 haplotypes in domestic cats and the frequency of hypermutations in the FIV vif and env genes were assessed in a retrospective cohort study with 30 blood samples collected between 2012 and 2016 from naturally FIV-infected cats in Brazil. The vif and env sequences were analyzed and displayed low or undetectable levels of hypermutations, and could not be associated with any specific A3Z3 haplotype.
Highlights
Feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) is a lentivirus of the Retroviridae family which is able to infect several species of Felidae
One of the steps of the feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) replication cycle is the reverse transcription of the genome; the reverse transcriptase enzyme uses the viral RNA as a template for the provirus synthesis, which will be further integrated in the genome of the host cell
The A3Z3 exon 3 was successfully amplified and sequenced from all of the 30 samples examined in the present study; env partial gene sequences were obtained from 27 samples; complete vif sequences were obtained from 15
Summary
Feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) is a lentivirus of the Retroviridae family which is able to infect several species of Felidae. It has been associated with feline acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (FAIDS). Besides its biological and genomic similarity with HIV, which makes it a valuable natural model for the study of AIDS [2], FIV has significant veterinary importance due to its high prevalence in domestic cats worldwide [3]. Among the proteins encoded by these genes, the viral infectivity factor (vif) is a 23-29 kDa protein essential to the formation of infectious viral particles in nonpermissive cells [4,5,6]
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