All foamy viruses give rise to a strong nuclear staining when infected cells are reacted with sera from infected hosts. This nuclear fluorescence distinguishes foamy viruses from all other retroviruses. The experiments reported here indicate that the foamy virus Gag precursor protein is transiently located in the nuclei of infected cells and this is the likely reason for the typical foamy virus...

Hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) gene therapy using retroviral vectors has immense potential, but vector-mediated genotoxicity limits use in the clinic. Lentiviral vectors are less genotoxic than gammaretroviral vectors and have become the vector of choice in clinical trials. Foamy retroviral vectors have a promising integration profile and are less prone to read-through transcription than gammare...

OBJECTIVE To examine infiltration of blood foamy monocytes, containing intracellular lipid droplets, into early atherosclerotic lesions and its contribution to development of nascent atherosclerosis. APPROACH AND RESULTS In apoE(-/-) mice fed Western high-fat diet (WD), >10% of circulating monocytes became foamy monocytes at 3 days on WD and >20% of monocytes at 1 week. Foamy monocytes also f...

In order to establish criteria for the serodiagnosis of foamy virus infections we investigated the extent to which sera from infected individuals of human and primate origin react with structural and non-structural virus proteins in immunoblot assays. Using lysates from infected cells as the source of virus antigen, antibodies were preferentially detected against the Gag proteins and the non-st...

Several days after unprotected sex, a 21-year-old male was referred with generalized edema and enlarged painless lymph nodes. Urinalysis showed specific gravity 1036, proteinuria 4+, nitrites negative, urine microscopy with 4–6 erythrocytes/high power field (HPF), 8–10 leucocytes/HPF and the presence of hyaline and granular casts. Urine culture was negative. Proteinuria was 4.6 g/24 h, serum cr...

Retroviral gene therapy offers immense potential to treat many genetic diseases and has already shown efficacy in clinical trials. However, retroviral vector mediated genotoxicity remains a major challenge and clinically relevant approaches to reduce integration near genes and proto-oncogenes are needed. Foamy retroviral vectors have several advantages over gammaretroviral and lentiviral vector...

BACKGROUND Drug design against human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) integrase through its mechanistic study is of great interest in the area in biological research. The main obstacle in this area is the absence of the full-length crystal structure for HIV-1 integrase to be used as a model. A complete structure, similar to HIV-1 of a prototype foamy virus integrase in complex with DNA, in...

Recent discoveries indicate that the foamy virus (FV) (Spumavirus) ancestor may have been among the first retroviruses to appear during the evolution of vertebrates, demonstrated by foamy endogenous retroviruses present within deeply divergent hosts including mammals, coelacanth, and ray-finned fish. If they indeed existed in ancient marine environments hundreds of millions of years ago, signif...

The formation of foamy macrophages by sequestering extracellular modified lipids is a key event in atherosclerosis. However, there is controversy about the effects of lipid loading on macrophage phenotype, with in vitro evidence suggesting either pro- or anti-inflammatory consequences. To investigate this in vivo we compared the transcriptomes of foamy and non-foamy macrophages that accumulate ...