Foamy virus replication: implications for interaction with other retroviruses and host cellular sequences

Abstract

Foamy viruses (FV) comprise one of the seven genera of retroviruses. These viruses infect most non-human primates as well as cats, cows and horses. Infections are persistent and life-long, but have no pathogenic consequences. Viral replication in vivo is at a very low level, but virus can be recovered years after infection. Humans can acquire FV as zoonotic infections which are also life-long. Although FV are highly cytopathic to fibroblast cultures, some cell lines can be infected with FV without any syncytium formation or cell death. Thus, material obtained from infected animals could contain FV proviruses without any obvious cytopathicity. The consequences of FV in biological material is not known. Little is known about how FV package their genomes, or whether they are able to package cellular genes which could have consequences for recipient cells. In addition, possible recombination between FV and other retroviruses has not been studied. Future studies of this virus should focus on the packaging ability of FV and whether they can recombine with other retroviruses.