AIM: To determine the prevalence of porcine endogenous retrovirus (PERV) in various pig breeds raised in China including Chinese experimental mini-pigs by PERV-reverse transcriptase (PERV-RT enzyme). Moreover, the potential for infection of PERV was investigated in patients treated with a bioreactor based on porcine liver cells (n = 3).METHODS: Pig serum, liver and musde cell-free supematants were collected from various Chinese pig breeds. Porcine hepatocytes were isolated with a two-step perfusion method. Three patients with acute or chronic liver failure were treated with a bioartificial liver support system (BALSS) for 8-12 h and serum samples were collected from the patients before, immediately after and 30 d after treatment.RESULTS: The activities of PERV-RT enzyme in pig liver and muscle cell-free supatants were higher than in normal human controls. PERV-TR enzyme activity did not increase in patients before and after 1 mo of treatment.PERV-RT activities were not significantly different when compared with pre-treatment group (1.544±0.155576), the post-treatment groups (1.501±0.053507, 1.461±0.033808 and 1.6006667±0.01963 for 0, 14 and 30 d post-treatment,respectively, P>0.05), and normal control group (1.440±1.0641, P>0.05). RT enzyme activity in Chinese experimental mini-pigs was higher than in normal human control group (1.440±1.0641 U/mL, P<0.05), and not significantly different (P>0.05) when compared with the pig breeds except in the muscle supatants. All the samples including muscle and liver cell supatants from the Chinese mini-experimental pigs and the four domestic Chinese pig breeds contained PERVs.CONCLUSION: These results suggest that the risk of PERV infection through BALSS containing porcine liver cells without immunosuppressants may be quite low. Although there were PERVs in Chinese experimental mini-pigs and porcine liver cell culture suspensions, we did not find any evidence of persistent PERV infection in patients treated with this porcine hepatocyte-based bioartificial liver.