Lentiviruses are naturally resident in a latent form in long-term ovine fibroblast cultures.

Long-term ovine fibroblast cultures contain replicative-competent lentiviruses in a latent form. This in vitro phenomenon, never described previously for lentiviruses, was clearly demonstrated by activating the expression of latent viruses with various inducing cell treatments, some of which were efficient in inducing endogenous retroviruses or latent herpesviruses. Activated lentiviruses were highly lytic in ovine fibroblasts (type I), or they established persistent infections (type II) as described previously for field isolates from sheep with progressive pneumonia (Quérat et al., J. Virol. 52:671-678, 1984).