Sensitization of rhabdo-, lenti-, and spumaviruses to human serum by galactosyl(alpha1-3)galactosylation

Abstract

Vesicular stomatitis virus, human immunodeficiency virus type 2, and human foamy virus, which were produced by cell lines expressing galactosyl(alpha1-3)galactosyl (alphaGal) sugars, were found to be less stable in human serum than those from alphaGal-negative cells, indicating that galactosyl(alpha1-3)galactosylation sensitizes these viruses as well as mammalian type C oncoviruses (Rother et al., J. Exp. Med. 182:1345-1355, 1995; Takeuchi et al., Nature (London) 379:85-88, 1996) to complement killing via natural anti-alphaGal antibodies. Thus, virus killing mediated by anti-alphaGal antibodies may play a role as a barrier to animal-to-human infection of various enveloped viruses. Virus vectors for human in vivo gene therapy based on the viruses mentioned above should be produced from alphaGal-negative cells.