Human CD59 incorporation into porcine endogenous retrovirus particles: implications for the use of transgenic pigs for xenotransplantation.

Transgenic pigs have been engineered to express human CD59 (hCD59) in order to suppress hyperacute rejection of xenotransplants in human recipients. In this study, porcine endogenous retrovirus (PERV) was produced in a porcine cell line expressing hCD59 in order to examine the effect of this complement control protein on PERV neutralization by human sera. hCD59 was found to be incorporated into PERV particles produced from engineered ST-IOWA cells.