Evidence of simian virus 40 exposure in a colony of captive baboons

Abstract

Simian virus 40 (SV40) is a polyomavirus for which non-human primates are the permissive host. The baboon (Papio spp.) is an old world monkey that is used in a variety of research investigations; however, natural infection of SV40 among baboons has not been thoroughly examined or reported. Initially, we were interested in determining the prevalence of SV40 infection among a captive colony of baboons based on the presence of antibodies to SV40 large T-antigen (Tag). An overall seroprevalence rate of >50% was found after screening sera from 142 baboons in the colony based on ELISA. Endpoint titer values for serum antibody binding to SV40 Tag reached as high as 1280 for 5 out of 142 baboons. Peptide binding assays revealed that a range of SV40 Tag epitopes are immunogenic in the baboon, and that individual animals differ in their humoral immune responses to SV40 Tag based on epitope recognition. Specificity to SV40 Tag and not some other primate polyomavirus encoded large Tag was further examined by serologic reactivity to peptide epitopes unique to SV40 Tag. Additional serology was performed to assess SV40 Tag reactivity by Western blot and whether antibodies were capable of neutralizing SV40 infectivity in vitro. Although antibodies with high levels of SV40 neutralization were observed in a number of the baboons, there was a lack of correlation between viral neutralization and antibodies to SV40 Tag. Further examination using molecular-based diagnosis and SV40 Tag specific real-time quantitative PCR determined that some of the baboons appeared to be exposed to SV40. DNA sequence analysis of the PCR products confirmed that SV40 Tag specific sequences were detected in baboons.

Urinary Proteome of Newborn Calves—New Potential in Non-Invasive Neonatal Diagnostic

“…Desalting of peptides was performed on custom-made reverse-phase microcolumns, prepared with R2 resin (Perseptive Biosystems Inc., Framingham, MA, USA) as described previously [ 14 ]. Peptide solution, obtained from the digestion of each spot, was loaded onto the microcolumn, and washed with 10 µL of 1% trifluoroacetic acid [ 15 ]. Bound peptides were eluted with 0.8 µL of matrix solution (5 µg/µL of alpha-cyano-4-hydrocynnamic acid in 70% acetonitrile and 0.1% TFA) directly onto the matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization (MALDI) target plate.…”

Antibodies reacting to mimotopes of Simian virus 40 large T antigen, the viral oncoprotein, in sera from children

“…It turned out that this monkey is the natural host of SV40 (Payton et al, 2004;Westfall et al, 2008). Several investigators published that SV40 is a transforming and oncogenic viral agent (Butel, 2012;Martini et al, 2007;Pipas, 2009).…”