HUMAN CARCINOEMBRYONIC ANTIGEN AND BILIARY GLYCOPROTEIN CAN SERVE AS MOUSE HEPATITIS-VIRUS RECEPTORS

Receptors for murine coronavirus mouse hepatitis virus (MHV) are membe rs of the murine carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) gene family. Since MHV can also infect primates and cause central nervous system lesions (G. F. Cabirac et al., Microb. Pathog. 16:339-357, 1993; R. S. Murray et al., Virology 188:274-284, 1992), we examined whether human CEA-relate d molecules can be used by MHV as potential receptors, Transfection of plasmids expressing human carcinoembryonic antigen (hCEA) and human b iliary glycoprotein into COS-7 cells, which lack a functional MHV rece ptor, conferred susceptibility to two MHV strains, A59 and MHV-2. Doma in exchange experiments between human and murine CEA-related molecules identified the immunoglobulin-like loop I of hCEA as the region confe rring the virus-binding specificity. This finding expands the potentia l MHV receptors to primate species.