Retroviral infection of Syrian hamster BHK cells depends on age and susceptibility toward sialidase

Abstract

Infection with recombinant retroviruses is a standard method to efficiently manipulate murine or human cells genetically. Due to differences in glycosylation of the hamster homologue to the murine ecotropic receptor and the absence of an amphotropic receptor, murine retroviruses are unable to infect hamster cells. Here we describe an isolated cell clone of the Baby Hamster Kidney cell line, BHK-21, that can be successfully infected with ecotropic murine retroviruses. This finding prompted us to investigate the possibility of changing the infectibility of other cell strains by manipulating the receptors of these cell lines in vitro. We found that treatment of other BHK cell clones with sialidase from C. perfringens makes these cell clones also permissive to murine ecotropic retroviruses. Long term cultivation of three tested cell clones increased this susceptibility. Although the resulting infectants show a higher rate of infectibility, they still require the manipulation with sialidase for this superinfection to be efficient.