The envelopes of two ecotropic murine leukemia viruses display distinct efficiencies in retroviral vaccination by interference.

In cell cultures infected with a retrovirus, the expression of the viral envelope interferes with superinfection by retroviruses which recognize the same receptor. We have previously demonstrated that vaccination of susceptible strains of mice (of the Mus musculus species) with the attenuated ecotropic Friend murine leukemia virus (F-MuLV) B3 efficiently protects against the early hemolytic anemia and the erythroleukemia induced by a challenge with the virulent F-MuLV 57 through a similar in vivo mechanism of interference to superinfection (A. Corbin and M. Sitbon, J. Virol. 67, 5146-5152, 1993). Vaccination with the heterologous ecotropic Moloney-MuLV (M-MuLV) efficiently protects against the early hemolytic anemia but has a weak protective effect on the F-MuLV 57-induced erythroleukemia. Furthermore, vaccination with the attenuated F-MuLV B3 had only a transient protective effect on M-MuLV-induced thymomas. These different efficiencies of F- and M-MuLV to confer protection in this model of vaccination by interference were mostly due to envelope sequences, indicative of distinct in vivo interference properties of the two ecotropic envelopes.