Promoter Activity of the Long Terminal Repeats of Porcine Endogenous Retroviruses of the Korean Domestic Pig

Porcine endogenous retroviruses (PERVs) in the pig genome represent a potential risk of infection in pig-to-human transplantation and are transmitted vertically. The solitary long terminal repeat (LTR) elements of the PERVs affect the replication properties of the individual viruses via their repeat sequences and by encoding a set of specific transcription factors. We examined the promoter activities of solitary LTR elements belonging to the PERV-A and -B families of the Korean domestic pig (KDP) using luciferase reporters. Three of the LTR structures (of PERV-A5-KDP, PERV-A7-KDP, PERV-A8-KDP) had different promoter activities in human HCT116 cells and monkey Cos7 cells, and potential negatively and positively acting regions affecting transcription were identified by deletion analysis. These data suggest that specific sequences in the U3 region of a given LTR element can affect the activities of promoter or enhancer elements in the PERV.