Retrovirus D/New England and its relation to Mason-Pfizer monkey virus

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Abstract
Seventeen isolates of retrovirus D/New England were obtained from 3 spp. of macaques at the New England Regional Primate Research Center. Of the isolates, 7 were obtained from macaques who subsequently died with the macaque immunodeficiency syndrome; other isolates were obtained from macaques with less severe or other forms of illness. Attempts to isolate type D retrovirus from peripheral lymphocytes of 97 apparently healthy macaques were not successful. Cloned DNA was prepared from Hirt supernatants of cells infected with 2 of these isolates (D/New England 398). By restriction endonuclease analysis, cloned pD398 DNA represented full-length viral DNA with 1 long terminal repeat. A detailed restriction endonuclease map of pD398 was derived and compared with a map of the cloned Mason-Pfizer monkey virus genome. Of restriction endnouclease sites, 476% (13 of 28) were found to be conserved when these related viruses were compared. Of the D/New England isolates, 5, including those from 3 different macaque species, were examined for strain variability by restriction endonuclease typing. Comparison of > 30 restriction endonuclease sites has not distinguished any of these D/New England isolates. It thus appears that a single strain of type D retrovirus is infecting 3 different species of macaques in the New England colony. Markedly reduced cross-hybridization was observed between cloned pD398 and Mason-Pfizer monkey virus DNA at high stringency; this reduced cross-hybridization was localized to the pol-env regions of the genome. Only very weak hybridization of D/New England to cloned squirrel monkey type D retrovirus DNA could be detected even at low-stringency conditions. What role type D retrovirus plays in the immunodeficiency syndrome of macaques remains to be determined.