PRRS virus (PRRSV) infects only a specific line of simian cells in culture for productive infection. The use of these cells for vaccine development is patent-protected, which severely hampers the development of any new vaccine for PRRS. The recent development of infectious clones make it possible to construct a genetically engineered PRRSV vaccine candidate, but even in this case the engineered virus needs to be propagated in cell culture and therefore an appropriate cell line permissive for PRRSV devoid of patent protection is an essential requirement for development of a new vaccine. In the present study, stable cell lines permissive for PRRS virus were developed. The gene for CD163, a recently described cellular receptor for PRRSV, was cloned and introduced into several different lines of porcine kidney cells which were naturally non-permissive for PRRSV. These cells expressed CD163 on the cell surface, and became permissive for PRRSV and produced infectious virus. These cells are additional reagents for PRRSV research and also may serve as an alternative source for PRRSV production. The newly developed PRRSV permissive cells are freely available to any researchers in the PRRS community. Contact information: Dr. Dongwan Yoo, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; email: [email protected]; Phone: 217-244-9120.
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