Abstract
Human foamy virus (HFV) is a human retrovirus that has not been clearly associated with human disease. In this study, we tested the capacity of nucleoside derivatives to inhibit the infectivity and cytopathic effect of HFV in T-lymphoblastoid cells in vitro.
H9 cells showed a dramatic cytopathic effect 3 weeks after exposure to HFV. At this time, viral infection was demonstrated by detection of viral antigens by immunofluorescence staining, release of reverse transcriptase activity (RT) in the supernatant, detection of typical viral particles by electron microscopy, and presence of proviral DNA by Southern blot analysis. H9 cells were pretreated with dideoxycytidine (ddC), dideoxyinosine (ddI), or azidothymidine (AZT) at various concentrations before HFV infection. ddC could not completely suppress viral replication at low concentrations, and inhibited cell proliferation at higher concentrations, ddl partially inhibited the formation of giant cells at 10 μM, with 95% inhibition of RT in the supernatant. AZT induced a complete inhibition of cytopathic effect at concentrations ≥ 1 μM, with more than 95% inhibition of RT in the supernatant. Moreover, the synthesis of proviral DNA was completely suppressed by 10 μM AZT. These results show that AZT and ddl can inhibit HFV replication in vitro.
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