Envelope proteins, methods and uses

摘要

A chimeric coat protein (I) is new and comprises at last part of an extracellular domain of the viral coat GALV (Gibbon Ape Leukemia Virus) or a functional variant. Independent claims are also included for the following: (1) a chimeric coat protein (I) comprising: (a) a region of the GALV coat consistent in whole or part of the sequence corresponding to residues 1-655 of a 685 amino acid sequence (A) fully defined in the specification; (b) a region consistent with the sequence corresponding to residues 1-655 of (A) and a region consistent with the sequence corresponding to residues 635-667 of (B), a 666 amino acid sequence fully defined in the specification; (c) an end C-terminal sequence (C), a 19 amino acid sequence fully defined in the specification; (d) an intracytoplasmic domain comprising (D), a 31 amino acid sequence fully defined in the specification; (e) an amino acid sequence comprising residues 1-685 of (A); (2) a nucleic acid (II) coding for: (i) for the coat protein (I); (ii) a GALV coat protein comprising a sequence of residues 1-2056 and 2129 of (A); (iii) a GALV coat protein comprising a sequence of nucleotide 1-2056 and 2112 of (A); (iv) a GALV coat protein comprising a sequence of nucleotide 1-2058 of (A); (3) a vector (III) comprising (II); (4) a cell (IV) comprising (II) or (III); (5) retroviral cell packaging comprising (II), (III) and nucleic acid encoding retroviral proteins gag and pol; (6) preparation of defective recombinant retrovirus; and (7) preparation of a fusogenic protein comprising modifying the cytoplasmic region of an coat (especially retroviral) protein and detecting the activity of the fusogenic protein.