Analysis of antibody response to ovine lentivirus by using viral gene products expressed in a prokaryotic system.

The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was used to amplify, clone, and express eight DNA fragments encoding p25, p16, reverse transcriptase (RT) core, C'-terminal RT, N'- and C'-terminals of external (gp70), and transmembrane (gp40) envelope proteins from visna virus infectious recombinant DNA. Efforts were focused on characterizing the nature of the humoral immune response of ovine progressive pneumonia (OPP) virus infected animals and identifying the conserved and prime-reactive antigenic determinants that have potential diagnostic value. This communication reports that the N'-terminal region of gp40 appeared to be the most immunoreactive of the bacterially expressed proteins and could serve as a sensitive immunodiagnostic antigen for the detection of OPP infection.