The Molecular Biology of Feline Immunodeficiency Virus (FIV)

Viruses

Julia C. Kenyon¹ 

[1] Department of Medicine, University of Cambridge, Box 157 Level 5 Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Hills Rd, Cambridge, CB2 0QQ, UK

关键词: FIV;    retrovirus;    lentivirus;   

DOI  :  10.3390/v3112192

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

Feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) is widespread in feline populations and causes an AIDS-like illness in domestic cats. It is highly prevalent in several endangered feline species. In domestic cats FIV infection is a valuable small animal model for HIV infection. In recent years there has been a significant increase in interest in FIV, in part to exploit this, but also because of the potential it has as a human gene therapy vector. Though much less studied than HIV there are many parallels in the replication of the two viruses, but also important differences and, despite their likely common origin, the viruses have in some cases used alternative strategies to overcome similar problems. Recent advances in understanding the structure and function of FIV RNA and proteins and their interactions has enhanced our knowledge of FIV replication significantly, however, there are still many gaps. This review summarizes our current knowledge of FIV molecular biology and its similarities with, and differences from, other lentiviruses.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.