20 research outputs found

    A conditional-lethal vaccinia virus mutant demonstrates that the I7L gene product is required for virion morphogenesis

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    A conditional-lethal recombinant virus was constructed in which the expression of the vaccinia virus I7L gene is under the control of the tetracycline operator/repressor system. In the absence of I7L expression, processing of the major VV core proteins is inhibited and electron microscopy reveals defects in virion morphogenesis subsequent to the formation of immature virion particles but prior to core condensation. Plasmid-borne I7L is capable of rescuing the growth of this virus and rescue is optimal when the I7L gene is expressed using the authentic I7L promoter. Taken together, these data suggest that correct temporal expression of the VV I7L cysteine proteinase is required for core protein maturation, virion assembly and production of infectious progeny

    Development of an in vitro cleavage assay system to examine vaccinia virus I7L cysteine proteinase activity

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    Through the use of transient expression assays and directed genetics, the vaccinia virus (VV) I7L gene product has been implicated as the major maturational proteinase required for viral core protein cleavage to occur during virion assembly. To confirm this hypothesis and to enable a biochemical examination of the I7L cysteine proteinase, an in vitro cleavage assay was developed. Using extracts of VV infected cells as the source of enzyme, reaction conditions were developed which allowed accurate and efficient cleavage of exogenously added core protein precursors (P4a, P4b and P25K). The cleavage reaction proceeded in a time-dependent manner and was optimal when incubated at 25°C. I7L-mediated cleavage was not affected by selected inhibitors of metalloproteinases, aspartic acid proteinases or serine proteinases (EDTA, pepstatin, and PMSF, respectively), but was sensitive to several general cysteine proteinase inhibitors (E-64, EST, Iodoacetic acid, and NEM) as well as the I7L active site inhibitor TTP-6171 [C. Byrd et al., J. Virol. 78:12147–12156 (2004)]. Finally, in antibody pull down experiments, it could be demonstrated that monospecific αI7L serum depleted the enzyme activity whereas control sera including αG1L, directed against the VV metalloproteinase, did not. Taken together, these data provide biochemical evidence that I7L is a cysteine proteinase which is directly involved in VV core protein cleavage. Furthermore, establishment of this I7L-mediated in vitro cleavage assay should enable future studies into the enzymology and co-factor requirements of the proteolysis reaction, and facilitate antiviral drug development against this essential target

    Mutational analysis of the potential catalytic residues of the VV G1L metalloproteinase

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    The vaccinia virus G1L open-reading frame is predicted to be a metalloproteinase based upon the presence of a conserved zinc-binding motif. Western blot analysis demonstrates G1L undergoes proteolytic processing during the course of infection, although the significance of this event is unknown. In order to determine which amino acid residues are important for G1L activity, a plasmid-borne library of G1L constructs containing mutations in and about the active site was created. Transient expression analysis coupled with a trans complementation assay of a conditionally-lethal mutant virus suggest that, of the mutants, only glutamic acid 120 is non-essential for G1L processing to occur

    Importance of disulphide bonds for vaccinia virus L1R protein function

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    L1R, a myristylated late gene product of vaccinia virus, is essential for formation of infectious intracellular mature virions (IMV). In its absence, only viral particles arrested at an immature stage are detected and no infectious progeny virus is produced. Previous studies have shown that the L1R protein is exclusively associated with the IMV membrane and that myristylation is required for correct targeting. The L1R protein contains six cysteine amino acid residues that have all been shown to participate in intramolecular disulphide bonds. However, it was not clear what role, if any, the disulfide bonds play in the membrane topology of the L1R protein. To address this question, a comprehensive library of L1R mutants in which the cysteine residues have been mutated to serine (either individually or in combination) were tested for their ability to rescue a L1R conditional lethal mutant virus under non-permissive conditions. Much to our surprise, we determined that C57 was not essential for production of infectious IMV. These results suggest that protein disulphide isomerases may be involved in reorganization of disulfide bonds within the L1R protein

    Analysis of vaccinia virus temperature-sensitive I7L mutants reveals two potential functional domains

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    As an approach to initiating a structure-function analysis of the vaccinia virus I7L core protein proteinase, a collection of conditional-lethal mutants in which the mutation had been mapped to the I7L locus were subjected to genomic sequencing and phenotypic analyses. Mutations in six vaccinia virus I7L temperature sensitive mutants fall into two groups: changes at three positions at the N-terminal end between amino acids 29 and 37 and two different substitutions at amino acid 344, near the catalytic domain. Regardless of the position of the mutation, mutants at the non-permissive temperature failed to cleave core protein precursors and had their development arrested prior to core condensation. Thus it appears that the two clusters of mutations may affect two different functional domains required for proteinase activity

    Increased susceptibility of Cantagalo virus to the antiviral effect of ST-246®

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    AbstractCantagalo virus (CTGV) is the etiologic agent of a pustular disease in dairy cows and dairy workers in Brazil with important economical and occupational impacts. Nevertheless, no antiviral therapy is currently available. ST-246 is a potent inhibitor of orthopoxvirus egress from cells and has proved its efficacy in cell culture and in animal models. In this work, we evaluated the effect of ST-246 on CTGV replication. Plaque reduction assays indicated that CTGV is 6–38 times more susceptible to the drug than VACV-WR and cowpox virus, respectively, with an EC50 of 0.0086μM and a selective index of >11,600. The analysis of β-gal activity expressed by recombinant viruses in the presence of ST-246 confirmed these results. In addition, ST-246 had a greater effect on the reduction of CTGV spread in comet tail assays and on the production of extracellular virus relative to VACV-WR. Infection of mice with CTGV by tail scarification generated primary lesions at the site of scarification that appeared less severe than those induced by VACV-WR. Animals infected with CTGV and treated with ST-246 at 100mg/kg for 5days did not develop primary lesions and virus yields were inhibited by nearly 98%. In contrast, primary lesions induced by VACV-WR were not affected by ST-246. The analysis of F13 (p37) protein from CTGV revealed a unique substitution in residue 217 (D217N) not found in other orthopoxviruses. Construction of recombinant VACV-WR containing the D217N polymorphism did not lead to an increase in the susceptibility to ST-246. Therefore, it is still unknown why CTGV is more susceptible to the antiviral effects of ST-246 compared to VACV-WR. Nonetheless, our data demonstrates that ST-246 is a potent inhibitor of CTGV replication that should be further evaluated as a promising anti-CTGV therapy
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