Rescue of Infectious Rotavirus Reassortants by a Reverse Genetics System Is Restricted by the Receptor-Binding Region of VP4.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Falkenhagen A
PROVIDER: S-EPMC7996497 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:Rotavirus A (RVA) genome segments can reassort upon co-infection of target cells with two different RVA strains. However, not all reassortants are viable, which limits the ability to generate customized viruses for basic and applied research. To gain insight into the factors that restrict reassortment, we utilized reverse genetics and tested the generation of simian RVA strain SA11 reassortants carrying the human RVA strain Wa capsid proteins VP4, VP7, and VP6 in all possible combinations. VP7-Wa, VP6-Wa, and VP7/VP6-Wa reassortants were effectively rescued, but the VP4-Wa, VP4/VP7-Wa, and VP4/VP6-Wa reassortants were not viable, suggesting a limiting effect of VP4-Wa. However, a VP4/VP7/VP6-Wa triple-reassortant was successfully generated, indicating that the presence of homologous VP7 and VP6 enabled the incorporation of VP4-Wa into the SA11 backbone. The replication kinetics of the triple-reassortant and its parent strain Wa were comparable, while the replication of all other rescued reassortants was similar to SA11. Analysis of the predicted structural protein interfaces identified amino acid residues, which might influence protein interactions. Restoring the natural VP4/VP7/VP6 interactions may therefore improve the rescue of RVA reassortants by reverse genetics, which could be useful for the development of next generation RVA vaccines.
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Project description:Human rotavirus A (RVA) causes acute gastroenteritis in infants and young children. The broad use of two vaccines, which are based on RVA strains from Europe and North America, significantly reduced rotavirus disease burden worldwide. However, a lower vaccine effectiveness is recorded in some regions of the world, such as sub-Saharan Africa, where diverse RVA strains are circulating. Here, a plasmid-based reverse genetics system was used to generate simian RVA reassortants with VP4 and VP7 proteins derived from African human RVA strains not previously adapted to cell culture. We were able to rescue 1/3 VP4 mono-reassortants, 3/3 VP7 mono-reassortants, but no VP4/VP7 double reassortant. Electron microscopy showed typical triple-layered virus particles for the rescued reassortants. All reassortants stably replicated in MA-104 cells; however, the VP4 reassortant showed significantly slower growth compared to the simian RVA or the VP7 reassortants. The results indicate that, at least in cell culture, human VP7 has a high reassortment potential, while reassortment of human VP4 from unadapted human RVA strains with simian RVA seems to be limited. The characterized reassortants may be useful for future studies investigating replication and reassortment requirements of rotaviruses as well as for the development of next generation rotavirus vaccines.
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Project description:Rotavirus infection is one of the most common causes of diarrheal illness in humans. In neonatal mice, rhesus rotavirus (RRV) can induce biliary atresia (BA), a disease resulting in inflammatory obstruction of the extrahepatic biliary tract and intrahepatic bile ducts. We previously showed that the amino acid arginine (R) within the sequence SRL (amino acids 445 to 447) in the RRV VP4 protein is required for viral binding and entry into biliary epithelial cells. To determine if this single amino acid (R) influences the pathogenicity of the virus, we generated a recombinant virus with a single amino acid mutation at this site through a reverse genetics system. We demonstrated that the RRV mutant (RRVVP4-R446G) produced less symptomatology and replicated to lower titers both in vivo and in vitro than those seen with wild-type RRV, with reduced binding in cholangiocytes. Our results demonstrate that a single amino acid change in the RRV VP4 gene influences cholangiocyte tropism and reduces pathogenicity in mice.IMPORTANCE Rotavirus is the leading cause of diarrhea in humans. Rhesus rotavirus (RRV) can also lead to biliary atresia (a neonatal human disease) in mice. We developed a reverse genetics system to create a mutant of RRV (RRVVP4-R446G) with a single amino acid change in the VP4 protein compared to that of wild-type RRV. In vitro, the mutant virus had reduced binding and infectivity in cholangiocytes. In vivo, it produced fewer symptoms and lower mortality in neonatal mice, resulting in an attenuated form of biliary atresia.
| S-EPMC5512261 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Species A rotaviruses (RVs) are a leading cause of severe acute gastroenteritis in infants and children younger than 5 years. Currently available RV vaccines were adapted from wild-type RV strains by serial passage of cultured cells or by reassortment between human and animal RV strains. These traditional methods require large-scale screening and genotyping to obtain vaccine candidates. Reverse genetics is a tractable, rapid, and reproducible approach to generating recombinant RV vaccine candidates carrying any VP4 and VP7 genes that provide selected antigenicity. Here, we developed a vaccine platform by generating recombinant RVs carrying VP4 (P[4] and P[8]), VP7 (G1, G2, G3, G8, and G9), and/or VP6 genes cloned from human RV clinical samples using the simian RV SA11 strain (G3P[2]) as a backbone. Neutralization assays using monoclonal antibodies and murine antisera revealed that recombinant VP4 and VP7 monoreassortant viruses exhibited altered antigenicity. However, replication of VP4 monoreassortant viruses was severely impaired. Generation of recombinant RVs harboring a chimeric VP4 protein for SA11 and human RV gene components revealed that the VP8* fragment was responsible for efficient infectivity of recombinant RVs. Although this system must be improved because the yield of vaccine viruses directly affects vaccine manufacturing costs, reverse genetics requires less time than traditional methods and enables rapid production of safe and effective vaccine candidates.IMPORTANCE Although vaccines have reduced global RV-associated hospitalization and mortality over the past decade, the multisegmented genome of RVs allows reassortment of VP4 and VP7 genes from different RV species and strains. The evolutionary dynamics of novel RV genotypes and their constellations have led to great genomic and antigenic diversity. The reverse genetics system is a powerful tool for manipulating RV genes, thereby controlling viral antigenicity, growth capacity, and pathogenicity. Here, we generated recombinant simian RVs (strain SA11) carrying heterologous VP4 and VP7 genes cloned from clinical isolates and showed that VP4- or VP7-substituted chimeric viruses can be used for antigenic characterization of RV outer capsid proteins and as improved seed viruses for vaccine production.
| S-EPMC7944460 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Group A rotavirus (RV) is a major cause of acute gastroenteritis in infants and young children worldwide. Recently, we established an entirely plasmid-based reverse genetics system for simian RV strain SA11. Although that system was robust enough to generate reassortant RVs, including human RV gene segments, and enabled better understanding of the biological differences between animal and human RV strains, a complete reverse genetics system for human RV strains is desirable. Here, we established a plasmid-based reverse genetics system for G4P[8] human RV strain Odelia. This technology was used to generate a panel of monoreassortant viruses between human and simian RV strains for all of the 11 gene segments demonstrating full compatibility between human and simian RV strains. Furthermore, we generated recombinant viruses lacking the C-terminal region of the viral nonstructural protein NSP1 and used it to define the biological function of the interaction between NSP1 and its target protein β-transducin repeat-containing protein (β-TrCP) during viral replication. While the NSP1 truncation mutant lacking the C-terminal 13 amino acids displayed lower β-TrCP degradation activity, it replicated as efficiently as the wild-type virus. In contrast, the truncation mutant lacking the C-terminal 166 amino acids of NSP1 replicated poorly, suggesting that the C-terminal region of NSP1 plays critical roles in viral replication. The system reported here will allow generation of engineered recombinant virus harboring desired mutations, increase our understanding of the molecular biology of human RV, and facilitate development of novel therapeutics and vaccines.IMPORTANCE Reverse genetics, an approach used to generate viruses from cloned cDNA, has increased our understanding of virus biology. Worldwide research led to the development of an entirely plasmid-based reverse genetics system for the simian RV laboratory strain. Although the technique allows generation of gene-modified recombinant RVs, biological differences between animal and human RVs mean that reverse genetics systems for human RV strains are still needed. Here, we describe a reverse genetics system for the high-yield human RV strain Odelia, which replicates efficiently and is suitable for in vitro molecular studies. Monoreassortant viruses between simian and human RV strains and NSP1 mutant viruses generated by the rescue system enabled study of the biological functions of viral gene segments. This human RV reverse genetics system will facilitate study of RV biology and development of vaccines and vectors.
| S-EPMC6955264 | biostudies-literature
Project description:At present the ability to create rationally engineered mutant rotaviruses is limited because of the lack of a tractable helper virus-free reverse genetics system. Using the cell culture adapted bovine RV RF strain (G6P6 [1]), we have attempted to recover infectious RV by co-transfecting in vitro transcribed ssRNAs which are identical in sequence to the positive sense strand of each of the 11 dsRNA genomic segments of the RF strain. The RNAs were produced either from cDNAs cloned by a target sequence-independent procedure, or from purified double layered RV particles (DLPs). We have validated their translational function by in vitro synthesis of (35)S-labelled proteins in rabbit reticulocyte lysates; all 11 proteins encoded by the RV genome were expressed. Transfection experiments with DLP- or cDNA-derived ssRNAs suggested that the RNAs do not act independently as mRNAs for protein synthesis, once delivered into various mammalian cell lines, and exhibit cytotoxicity. Transfected RNAs were not infectious since a viral cytopathic effect was not observed after infection of MA104 cells with lysates from transfected cells. By contrast, an engineered mRNA encoding eGFP was expressed when transfected under identical conditions into the same cell lines. Co-expression of plasmids encoding NSP2 and NSP5 using a fowlpox T7 polymerase recombinant virus revealed viroplasm-like structure formation, but this did not enable the translation of transfected RV ssRNAs. Attempts to recover RV from ssRNAs transcribed intracellularly from transfected cDNAs were also unsuccessful and suggested that these RNAs were also not translated, in contrast to successful translation from a transfected cDNA encoding an eGFP mRNA.
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Project description:Major advances in the study of the molecular biology of RNA viruses have resulted from the ability to generate and manipulate full-length genomic cDNAs of the viral genomes with the subsequent synthesis of infectious RNA for the generation of recombinant viruses. Coronaviruses have the largest RNA virus genomes and, together with genetic instability of some cDNA sequences in Escherichia coli, this has hampered the generation of a reverse-genetics system for this group of viruses. In this report, we describe the assembly of a full-length cDNA from the positive-sense genomic RNA of the avian coronavirus, infectious bronchitis virus (IBV), an important poultry pathogen. The IBV genomic cDNA was assembled immediately downstream of a T7 RNA polymerase promoter by in vitro ligation and cloned directly into the vaccinia virus genome. Infectious IBV RNA was generated in situ after the transfection of restricted recombinant vaccinia virus DNA into primary chick kidney cells previously infected with a recombinant fowlpox virus expressing T7 RNA polymerase. Recombinant IBV, containing two marker mutations, was recovered from the transfected cells. These results describe a reverse-genetics system for studying the molecular biology of IBV and establish a paradigm for generating genetically defined vaccines for IBV.
| S-EPMC116132 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Rotavirus infections can be diagnosed in stool samples by serological and molecular methods. We developed a novel reverse transcriptase PCR (RT-PCR) method for the amplification of rotavirus RNA and a reverse hybridization assay on a strip to detect amplimers and identify the specific G and P genotypes present in human stool specimens. An additional aim was to permit specific identification of the rotavirus G1P[8] strain, used in the Rotarix vaccine. Novel broad-spectrum PCR primers were developed for both VP4 and VP7, permitting the amplification of a wide range of rotavirus genotypes. Primer sets comprise mixtures of defined primer sequences. For the identification of G and P genotypes, two reverse hybridization strip assays were developed. Both the VP4 and the VP7 strip contain universal probes for the detection of VP4 and VP7 sequences, irrespective of the G or P genotype. The VP4 strip contains type-specific probes for P[4], P[6], P[8], P[9], and P[10]. The VP7 strip contains type-specific probes for G1, G2, G3, G4, G5, G6, G8, and G9. In addition, probes to distinguish between wild-type G1 and G1 vaccine strain sequences were present. Testing by analysis of multiple reference strains confirmed that both RT-PCR methods allowed the detection of a broad spectrum of genotypes. RT-PCR for VP7 was more sensitive than RT-PCR for VP4, but all samples identified as positive for rotavirus antigen by an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) were also positive for both VP4 and VP7. The high specificity of the reverse hybridization method was confirmed by sequence analysis as well as by type-specific PCR, and the vaccine strain could also be specifically identified. The reverse hybridization method permits accurate identification of mixed infections with different genotypes. Rotavirus genotypes for which no type-specific probes were present on the strip were adequately identified by the universal detection probes. The assay was formally validated by analyses of specificity, sensitivity, precision, accuracy, and robustness. In a panel of 149 ELISA-positive stool samples, comparison with conventional type-specific RT-PCR methods revealed the superiority of the novel method, mainly in cases of mixed rotavirus infections. This novel method permits highly accurate detection and identification of human rotavirus infections in stool samples. This validated assay could be useful for large-scale epidemiological and clinical trials.
| S-EPMC2738096 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Infectious bronchitis virus (IBV) strain H120 was successfully rescued as infectious clone by reverse genetics. Thirteen 1.5-2.8 kb fragments contiguously spanning the virus genome were amplified and cloned into pMD19-T. Transcription grade complete length cDNA was acquired by a modified "No See'm" ligation strategy, which employed restriction enzyme Bsa I and BsmB I and ligated more than two fragments in one T4 ligase reaction. The full-length genomic cDNA was transcribed and its transcript was transfected by electroporation into BHK-21 together with the transcript of nucleocapsid gene. At 48 h post transfection, the medium to culture the transfected BHK-21 cells was harvested and inoculated into 10-days old SPF embryonated chicken eggs (ECE) to replicate the rescued virus. After passage of the virus in ECE five times, the rescued H120 virus (R-H120) was successfully recovered. R-H120 was subsequently identified to possess the introduced silent mutation site in its genome. Some biological characteristics of R-H120 such as growth curve, EID50 and HA titers, were tested and all of them were very similar to its parent strain H120. In addition, both R-H120 and H120 induced a comparable titer of HA inhibition (HI) antibody in immunized chickens and also provided up to 85% of immune protection to the chickens that were challenged with Mass41 IBV strain. The present study demonstrated that construction of infectious clone from IBV vaccine strain H120 is possible and IBV-H120 can be use as a vaccine vector for the development of novel vaccines through molecular recombination and the modified reverse genetics approach.
| S-EPMC7117355 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Rotavirus is a segmented double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) virus that causes severe gastroenteritis in young children. We have established an efficient simplified rotavirus reverse genetics (RG) system that uses 11 T7 plasmids, each expressing a unique simian SA11 (+)RNA, and a cytomegalovirus support plasmid for the African swine fever virus NP868R capping enzyme. With the NP868R-based system, we generated recombinant rotavirus (rSA11/NSP3-FL-UnaG) with a genetically modified 1.5-kb segment 7 dsRNA encoding full-length nonstructural protein 3 (NSP3) fused to UnaG, a 139-amino-acid green fluorescent protein (FP). Analysis of rSA11/NSP3-FL-UnaG showed that the virus replicated efficiently and was genetically stable over 10 rounds of serial passaging. The NSP3-UnaG fusion product was well expressed in rSA11/NSP3-FL-UnaG-infected cells, reaching levels similar to NSP3 levels in wild-type recombinant SA11-infected cells. Moreover, the NSP3-UnaG protein, like functional wild-type NSP3, formed dimers in vivo Notably, the NSP3-UnaG protein was readily detected in infected cells via live-cell imaging, with intensity levels ∼3-fold greater than those of the NSP1-UnaG fusion product of rSA11/NSP1-FL-UnaG. Our results indicate that FP-expressing recombinant rotaviruses can be made through manipulation of the segment 7 dsRNA without deletion or interruption of any of the 12 open reading frames (ORFs) of the virus. Because NSP3 is expressed at higher levels than NSP1 in infected cells, rotaviruses expressing NSP3-based FPs may be more sensitive tools for studying rotavirus biology than rotaviruses expressing NSP1-based FPs. This is the first report of a recombinant rotavirus containing a genetically engineered segment 7 dsRNA.IMPORTANCE Previous studies generated recombinant rotaviruses that express FPs by inserting reporter genes into the NSP1 ORF of genome segment 5. Unfortunately, NSP1 is expressed at low levels in infected cells, making viruses expressing FP-fused NSP1 less than ideal probes of rotavirus biology. Moreover, FPs were inserted into segment 5 in such a way as to compromise NSP1, an interferon antagonist affecting viral growth and pathogenesis. We have identified an alternative approach for generating rotaviruses expressing FPs, one relying on fusing the reporter gene to the NSP3 ORF of genome segment 7. This was accomplished without interrupting any of the viral ORFs, yielding recombinant viruses that likely express the complete set of functional viral proteins. Given that NSP3 is made at moderate levels in infected cells, rotaviruses encoding NSP3-based FPs should be more sensitive probes of viral infection than rotaviruses encoding NSP1-based FPs.
| S-EPMC6880180 | biostudies-literature