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In a collaboration with Japanese researchers, the American team inserted monkey genes that block the AIDS virus to eggs of female cats before fertilizing them.
Scientists also inserted green fluorescent protein (GFP) gene from fluorescent jelly fish, making the altered genes easy to spot.
The GFP gene expresses proteins that fluoresce when illuminated with certain frequencies of light.
Fertilization of the altered oocyted led to development of three genetically modified (GM) cats.
Investigations showed that the three transgenic cats now a year old not only glow green under ultraviolet light but also have intrinsic immunity against FIV or feline immunodeficiency virus, which causes AIDS in cats.
According to the report published in the journal Nature Methods, the extra monkey TRIMCyp gene, which protects rhesus macaques from being infected by feline immunodeficiency virus or FIV, can develop the same immunity in the feline as well.
"FIV causes AIDS with loss of infection-fighting T cells like HIV does in people, and cats get sick from virtually the same AIDS-defining opportunistic infections as humans who have untreated HIV," said senior researcher Eric Poeschla of the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine in Rochester, Minnesota.
"The animals clearly have the protective gene expressed in all their tissues including the lymph nodes, thymus and spleen," he added. "That's crucial because that's where the disease really happens, and where you see destruction of T-cells targeted by HIV in humans."
