Precursor Polypeptides to Structural Proteins of Visna Virus

Visna virus is a retrovirus which replicates in fibroblast-like cells of the sheep choroid plexus through a lytic cycle. Visna virions contain three major low-molecular-weight proteins (p30, p16, and p14) which, together with the genomic RNA and several molecules of reverse transcriptase, constitute the core structure of the virions. The core is surrounded by an envelope containing a major glycoprotein (gp135). By analogy with the oncoviruses, these three groups of structural proteins (i.e., the internal proteins, the envelope glycoprotein, and the reverse transcriptase) are probably encoded by the gag, env, and pol genes, respectively. To elucidate the genetic organization of the visna virus genome and its expression, we studied the synthesis of viral proteins in infected sheep choroid plexus cells. Intracellular viral proteins were detected by immunoprecipitation of pulse-labeled cell extracts with monospecific sera raised against p30, p16, and gp135 and resolution of the proteins by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. Immunoprecipitation with anti-p30 and anti-p16 sera allowed the characterization of the 55,000-dalton polypeptide precursor to internal virion proteins p30, p16, and p14 (Pr55(gag)). Tryptic peptide mapping confirmed the precursor-product relationship between Pr55(gag) and the three internal proteins. In addition, a gag-related polypeptide of 150,000 daltons was also detected. This polypeptide, which was less abundant than Pr55(gag), is a likely precursor to the viral reverse transcriptase (Pr150(gag-pol)). Pr55(gag) and Pr150(gag-pol) are not glycosylated. The precursor related to major envelope protein gp135 is a glycosylated polypeptide with an average molecular weight of 150,000 (gPr150(env)). Pulse-chase experiments indicated that gPr150(env) matures into glycoprotein gp135 intracellularly; however, gp135 was never preponderant in cell extracts. The non-glycosylated from of gPr150(env), which accumulated in the presence of 2-deoxy-d-glucose, appeared as a polypeptide of about 100,000 daltons. These results indicated that visna virus codes for the largest non-glycosylated env-related precursor among all of the retroviruses and therefore probably contains the largest env gene.