Infectivity assessment of porcine endogenous retrovirus using high-throughput sequencing technologies

Area of Science:

• Xenotransplantation research
• Virology
• Genomics

Background:

• Xenogenic cell-based therapies, like porcine islet cells for diabetes, face challenges due to porcine endogenous retrovirus (PERV).
• PERV transmission from pigs to humans is a concern for xenotransplantation safety.
• Current methods like PCR may inaccurately assess PERV infection risk.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the infectivity of PERVs using high-throughput sequencing.
• To develop a reliable method for assessing PERV infection risk in xenotransplantation.
• To determine if genomic sequencing can predict PERV infectivity in human cells.

Main Methods:

• High-throughput sequencing of porcine genomes.
• RNA sequencing of PERV-infected human and porcine cells.
• Mapping sequencing reads to PERV sequences.
• Analyzing normalized read counts to predict infectivity.

Main Results:

• High-throughput sequencing identified PERV sequences in the porcine genome.
• Normalized read counts mapped to PERV regions accurately predicted PERV infectivity.
• This method proved useful for risk assessment prior to xenotransplantation.

Conclusions:

• High-throughput sequencing offers a reliable method for assessing PERV infectivity.
• This approach can mitigate risks associated with xenotransplantation using porcine products.
• Accurate PERV risk evaluation is crucial for the safety of xenotransplantation therapies.