Molecular Interactions between Herpes and Retroviruses in Dually Infected Chickens and Turkeys
Authors: Davidson Irit , Kung Hsing-Jien , Witter Richard L. 
Published: December 2021

Tumors in commercial poultry are caused mainly by infection with avian herpes and retroviruses, the herpesvirus Marek's disease virus (MDV) and the retroviruses, reticuloendotheliosis (REV), lymphoid leukosis, subgroups A-I and J (ALV and ALV-J) in chickens, or Iymphoprolipherative disease (LPDV) in turkeys. Infection with one virus aggravates the clinical outcome of birds that are already infected by another oncogenic virus. As these viruses do not interfere for infection, MDV and one or more retroviruses can infect the same flock, the same bird and the same cell. While infecting the same cell, herpes and retroviruses might interact in at least three ways: a) Integration of retrovirus genomes, or genomic fragments (mainly the LTR) into MDV;b) alteration of LTR-driven expression of retroviral genes by MDV immediate- early genes, and c) by herpesvirus induced cellular transcriptional factors. The first type of molecular interaction have been demonstrated to happen efficiently in vitro by Dr. Kung, in cases multiple infection of cell cultures with MDV and REV or MDV and ALV. Moreover, Dr. Witter showed that an in vitro-created recombinant, RM1, had altered in vitro replication and in vivo biological properties. A more comprehensive characterization of RM1 was carried out in the present project. We sought to highlight whether events of such integrations occur also in the bird, in vivo. For that, we had first to determine the prevalence of dually-infected individual birds in commercial flocks, as no systematic survey has been yet reported. Surprisingly, about 25% of the commercial flocks infected with avian oncogenic viruses had a multiple virus infection and 5% of the total samples ana lysed had multiple virus sequences. Then, we aimed to evaluate and characterize biologically and molecularly the resulting recombinants, if formed, and to analyse the factors that affect these events (virus strains, type and age of birds and time interval between the infection with both viruses). The perception of retrovirus insertions into herpesviruses in vivo is not banal, as the in vivo and in vitro systems differ in the viral-target cells, lymphocytes or fibroblasts, in the MDV-replicative type, transforming or productive, and the immune system presence. We realized that previous methods employed to study in vitro created recombinant viruses were not adequate for the study of samples taken directly from the bird. Therefore, the Hot Spot-combined PCR was developed based on the molecularly known RM1 virus. Also, the PFGE that was used for tissue cultured-MDV separation was inefficient for separating MDV from organs, but useful with feather tips as a source of bird original MDV. Much attention was dedicated now to feathers, because if a recombinant virus would be formed in vivo, its biological significance would be evident by horizontal dissemination through the feathers. Major findings were: a) not only in vitro, but also in vivo MDV and retrovirus co-infections lead to LTR integrations into MDV. That was shown by the detection of chimeric molecules. These appeared in low quantities and as quasispecies, thus interfering with sequence analysis of cloned gel-purified chimeric molecules. Mainly inserts were located in the repeat long MDV fragments. In field birds chimeric molecules were detected at a lower frequency (2.5%) than in experimentally infected birds (30-50%). These could be transmitted experimentally to another birds by inoculation with chimeric molecules containing blood. Several types of chimeric molecules were formed, and same types were detected in birds infected by a second round. To reproduce viral integrations, in vivo infection trials were done with field inoculate that contained both viruses, but the chimeric molecule yield was undetectable.