Resistance Gene to MAIDS Virus-Infected Mice

To examine whether the resistance allele of the Fv-4 gene (the Fv-4r gene) is a dominant inhibitory-productencoding gene which can be used to prevent the development of murine AIDS (MAIDS), bone marrow cells from BALBIc-Fv-4wr mice were transplanted into BALB/c mice and C57BL/6 mice infected with MAIDS virus. Mimost all of the virus-infected BALB/c and C57BL/6 mice developed MAIDS within 4 months and died 2 or 3 nwonths later. However, when the virus-infected mice were subjected to cobalt irradiation and then given an intrhvenous injection of 107 BALBIc-Fv-4wr mouse bone marrow cells, the recipient mice survived much longer than the untreated mice, which suggests that the Fv-4 gene is a dominant inhibitory gene that is potentially useful hi gene therapy of MAIDS.