Prophylactic and therapeutic effects of phosphonoformate against feline leukemia virus in vitro

Phosphonoformate (PFA), a noncompetitive inhibitor of reverse transcriptase (RT), inhibited feline leukemia virus (FeLV) infection of 2 feline cell lines and inhibited progeny virus RT activity in a chronically FeLV-infected cell line. Feline leukemia virus infection of 3201 cells, an FeLV-negative lymphoma cell line, was inhibited by greater than 70% at a concentration of only 1 microM PFA and by greater than 90% at concentrations of 64 to 256 microM PFA, as evidenced by RT activity. However, FeLV antigen expression by 3201 cells remained relatively constant over noncytotoxic concentrations of PFA. Because the persistence of viral antigen expression with concomitant suppression of RT activity appears to be unique and because 3201 cells express small amounts of an endogenous retrovirus (RD-114) and contain endogenous FeLV proviral sequences, a possible role of endogenous retroviruses acting as helper viruses was suggested. Feline leukemia virus infection of 81C cells, a sarcoma-positive, leukemia-negative fibroblast cell line, was inhibited by greater than 50% at a concentration of 64 microM PFA and by greater than 98% at concentrations of 256 to 512 microM PFA, as indicated by suppression of focus formation. The feline lymphoid cell line FL-74 is a large producer of FeLV. When FL-74 cells were cultured in the presence of 256 microM PFA, virus production (virus budding and viral antigen) was not affected, but progeny virus lost RT activity and infectivity. Direct addition of PFA (256 microM) to FeLV also reduced RT activity and infectivity. These data indicate that PFA can directly and rapidly inactivate retrovirus independent of cellular processing, presumably by inhibiting RT.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)