Determination of the Copy Number of Porcine Endogenous Retroviruses (PERV) in Auckland Island Pigs Repeatedly Used for Clinical Xenotransplantation and Elimination of PERV-C ...

• Main Authors: Fiebig, Uwe, Krüger, Luise, Denner, Joachim
• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: Freie Universität Berlin 2024
• Subjects: porcine endogenous retroviruses; Auckland Island pigs; islet cell xenotransplantation; 600 Technik, Medizin, angewandte Wissenschaften610 Medizin und Gesundheit616 Krankheiten; 600 Technik, Medizin, angewandte Wissenschaften630 Landwirtschaft630 Landwirtschaft und verwandte Bereiche; Antarctic; New Zealand; Antarc*; Auckland Island
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.17169/refubium-42151; https://refubium.fu-berlin.de/handle/fub188/42427

Auckland Island pigs represent an inbred population of feral pigs isolated on the sub-Antarctic island for over 100 years. The animals have been maintained under pathogen-free conditions in New Zealand; they are well characterized virologically and have been used as donor sources in first clinical trials of porcine neonatal islet cell transplantation for the treatment of human diabetes patients. The animals do not carry any of the xenotransplantation-relevant viruses, and in the first clinical trials, no porcine viruses, including porcine endogenous retroviruses (PERVs) were transmitted to the human recipients. PERVs pose a special risk in xenotransplantation, since they are part of the pig genome. When the copy number of PERVs in these animals was analyzed using droplet digital PCR and primers binding to a conserved region of the polymerase gene (PERVpol), a copy number typical for Western pigs was found. This confirms previous phylogenetic analyses of microsatellites as well as mitochondrial analyses ...