Mechanism of restriction of ecotropic and xenotropic murine leukemia viruses and formation of pseudotypes between the two viruses

Abstract

Ecotropic and xenotropic murine leukemia viruses (MuLV's) constitute separate interference groups; within each group there is cross-interference, but between the groups there is no detectable interference. Interference is manifest against pseudotypes in which the vesicular stomatitis virus genome is contained within the coat of one of the murine leukemia viruses. The pseudotypes display the cell specificity of the leukemia viruses: pseudotypes with an ecotropic MuLV coat infect mouse cells but not rabbit or mink cells; pseudotypes with a xenotropic MuLV coat infect rabbit or mink cells well but mouse cells very poorly. Efficient pseudotype formation also occurs between the two MuLV classes, and both the interference patterns and the cell specificity of these pseudotypes are entirely determined by their envelope. Using these pseudotypes, ecotropic MuLV infection could be established in xenogeneic cells, and the resulting progeny could be scored by using a conventional XC cell assay. Also, xenotropic MuLV infection could be established in a mouse cell, showing that no absolute intracellular barrier against xenotropic virus growth exists in murine cells. The major barriers against both xenotropic and ecotropic MuLV therefore are cell surface barriers. Xenogeneic cells probably lack receptors for ecotropic MuLV, but murine cells may either lack receptors for xenotropic MuLV or have receptors that are blocked by endogenous expression of the glycoprotein of endogenous xenotropic MuLV.