Tax1-expressing feline 8C cells are useful to monitor the life cycle of human T-cell leukemia virus type I.

Takahisa Mori, Nobuaki Shimizu, Atsushi Jinno-Oue, Atsushi Tanaka, Masahiko Shinagawa, Shigemi Tokizawa, Tsuyoshi Akagi, Hiroo Hoshino

Department of Virology and Preventive Medicine, Gunma University Graduate School of Medicine, Maebashi, Gunma 371-8511, Japan. tmori@med.gunma-u.ac.jp

The Journal of general virology 2012 Mar

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Extremely low infectivity has hampered direct (cell-free) infection studies of human T-cell leukemia virus type I (HTLV-I). In order to break through this barrier, we examined the susceptibility of many kinds of cells to HTLV-I and found a feline kidney cell line, 8C, that is highly susceptible to HTLV-I and produced remarkable amounts of infectious progeny viruses. Tax1 protein encoded by HTLV-I is known as a transcription activator for viral and cellular genes. We found that the 8C cells expressing the Tax1 protein (8C/TaxWT cells) can produce more progeny viruses than 8C cells when the cells were exposed to cell-free HTLV-I. A large number of syncytia were also induced in these cells. Here, we propose 8C/TaxWT cells as a useful tool to study the cell-free HTLV-I infection.

Citation

Takahisa Mori, Nobuaki Shimizu, Atsushi Jinno-Oue, Atsushi Tanaka, Masahiko Shinagawa, Shigemi Tokizawa, Tsuyoshi Akagi, Hiroo Hoshino. Tax1-expressing feline 8C cells are useful to monitor the life cycle of human T-cell leukemia virus type I. The Journal of general virology. 2012 Mar;93(Pt 3):588-93