Schizophrenia is a pervasive neuropsychiatric disease of uncertain etiology. Previous studies have postulated that retroviruses may contribute to the etiology of some cases of schizophrenia. We examined the possible relationship between retroviral infection and schizophrenia by measuring antibodies to a number of different primate retroviruses in the sera of individuals undergoing their first h...

Human endogenous retrovirus K (HERV-K) is the most intact retrovirus in the human genome. However, no single HERV-K provirus in the human genome today appears to be infectious. Since the Gag protein is the central component for the production of retrovirus particles, we investigated the abilities of Gag from two HERV-K proviruses to support production of virus-like particles and viral infectivi...

We determined the complete nucleotide sequence of the human endogenous retrovirus genome HERV-K10 isolated as the sequence homologous to the Syrian hamster intracisternal A-particle (type A retrovirus) genome. HERV-K10 is 9,179 base pairs long with long terminal repeats of 968 base pairs at both ends; a sequence 290 base pairs long, however, was found to be deleted. It was concluded that a comp...

Tetherin is a membrane protein of unusual topology expressed from rodents to humans that accumulates enveloped virus particles on the surface of infected cells. However, whether this 'tethering' activity promotes or restricts retroviral spread during acute retrovirus infection in vivo is controversial. We report here the identification of a single nucleotide polymorphism in the Tetherin gene of...

Tetherin/BST-2 is a host restriction factor that inhibits retrovirus release from infected cells in vitro by tethering nascent virions to the plasma membrane. However, contradictory data exists on whether Tetherin inhibits acute retrovirus infection in vivo. Previously, we reported that Tetherin-mediated inhibition of Friend retrovirus (FV) replication at 2 weeks post-infection correlated with ...

To understand the molecular basis for multidrug-resistant (MDR) cancer cells in vivo, this study analyzed molecular changes of the mdr1a gene region in leukemia cells in mice during continuous treatment with vincristine. An inverse insertion of murine leukemia retrovirus (MuLV) into the 5'-flanking region of the mdr1a gene was found. This insertion was concomitantly accompanied by up-regulation...

Simian foamy viruses (SFVs) are highly prevalent in a variety of nonhuman primate species ranging from prosimians to apes. SFVs possess a broad host range, and human infections can occur by cross-species transfer (W. Heneine et al., Nat. Med. 4:403-407, 1998). Retrovirus screening of potential sources of infection, such as laboratory research animals and simian-derived biological products, coul...

Mouse mammary tumor cells (Mm5Mt/c1) produced mouse mammary tumor virus (MMTV) (type B retrovirus) at early passages in culture. They apparently produced predominently type C retrovirus(es) at late passages in culture. The decline in MMTV production during passage was not accompanied by an apparent decrease in the synthesis or accumulation of intracellular MMTV-specific RNA. As judged by the co...