MOLECULAR STUDIES ON BIV AND BHV INTERACTIONS

Bovine immunodeficiency-like virus (BIV) is a recently characterized
lentivirus isolated from cattle. It is the only lentivirus which has
been isolated from cattle and has structural, genetic, antigenic as well
as biological similarity to the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).
Infected animals developed lymphoproliferative disorders,
lymphadenopathy, lymphocytosis, lymphomas, central nervous system
disorders and emaciation. It has been estimated that BIV infection may
be common in cattle and as much as 4% of cattle in certain areas may be
infected with BIV. It was demonstrated in human lentivirus HIV that
exogenous infections by other human viruses, like herpes, could play an
important role in the pathogenesis of AIDS. Cattle are often infected
with viruses, such as bovine herpes-1 and bovine viral diarrhea virus.
These viruses are ubiquitous in nature, cause respiratory and genital
infections, and have important economic impacts in the cattle industry.
An annual loss of 500 million to 1 billion dollars is due to diseases
caused by these viruses. Our overall objective of this proposed project
is to understand the biology of BIV infection and its interactions with
other viruses in causing diseases. We have obtained preliminary evidence
that BIV can be activated by bovine herpesvirus-1 Cooper strain (BHV-1).
It is of paramount importance to determine if BIV plays a role in the
pathogenesis of herpes infection and vice versa. Since both viruses are
cytolytic, enhancement of virus production by each other may play an
important role in bovine disease. Our immediate approaches and specific aims are: 1) to study the
interactions between BHV-1 and BIV in vitro, to identify and characterize
the BHV-1 viral genes that may be involved in the transactivation; 2) to
study whether there is a bi-directional interaction between BIV and
BHV-1; 3) to study the interaction between BIV and other strains of
BHV-1, such as the encephalitic BHV-1 strain; 4) to conduct a pilot
animal infectivity study in order to understand the roles played by the
interacting viruses in pathogenesis. Our in vitro approach is to infect
cells with both viruses and then measure the level of viral production.
In addition, we propose to study the mechanism of transactivation and to
identify the herpesvirus gene(s) that is responsible for the
transactivation of BIV. Our animal studies will involved challenging the
animals with both viruses, the pathogenesis and the disease course of
superinfected animals will be compared to those that are only infected
by a single virus. Various immunological and clinical assays will be
used to follow infection, such as viral isolation, antibody titer, T cell
proliferative response and T4/T8 cell ratio. Pathological analyses will
also be performed on these animals at the end of the study. The studies proposed here are significant as they will generate valuable
information about diseases that may be associated with BIV infection, and
to understand its interaction with the host and with other viruses. It
can then further be used as a model for studying animal lentivirus
infection, its mechanism in immunosuppression, tumor formation and as a
system for testing possible lentiviral vaccines.