The Feline Immunodeficiency Virus

Feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) was first isolated from a large multiple cat household in Petaluma, California, in 1986 (Pedersen et al. , 1987). The discovery was prompted by an outbreak of acquired immunodeficiency-like disease among a large group of feline-leukemia-virus-negative cats housed in the same pen (Pedersen et al. , 1987). Plasma and whole blood from three cats in this group were inoculated into two specific pathogen-free cats. The inoculated cats developed fever, leukopenia, and generalized lymphadenopathy after 4 to 6 weeks. A lentivirus was isolated in normal feline T-lymphocyte-enriched peripheral blood mononuclear cell cultures co-cultivated with similar cells from the two experimentally infected animals. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.