An Essential Role for the Proximal but Not the Distal Cytoplasmic Tail of Glycoprotein M in Murid Herpesvirus 4 Infection

Murid herpesvirus-4 (MuHV-4) provides a tractable model with which to define common, conserved features of gamma-herpesvirus biology. The multi-membrane spanning glycoprotein M (gM) is one of only 4 glycoproteins that are essential for MuHV-4 lytic replication. gM binds to gN and is thought to function mainly secondary envelopment and virion egress, for which several predicted trafficking motifs in its C-terminal cytoplasmic tail could be important. We tested the contribution of the gM cytoplasmic tail to MuHV-4 lytic replication by making recombinant viruses with varying C-terminal deletions. Removing an acidic cluster and a distal YXXΦ motif altered the capsid distribution somewhat in infected cells but had little effect on virus replication, either in vitro or in vivo. In contrast, removing a proximal YXXΦ motif as well completely prevented productive replication. gM was still expressed, but unlike its longer forms showed only limited colocalization with co-transfected gN, and in the context of whole virus appeared to support gN expression less well. We conclude that some elements of the gM cytoplasmic tail are dispensible for MuHV-4 replication, but the tail as a whole is not

A Wide Extent of Inter-Strain Diversity in Virulent and Vaccine Strains of Alphaherpesviruses

Alphaherpesviruses are widespread in the human population, and include herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV-1) and 2, and varicella zoster virus (VZV). These viral pathogens cause epithelial lesions, and then infect the nervous system to cause lifelong latency, reactivation, and spread. A related veterinary herpesvirus, pseudorabies (PRV), causes similar disease in livestock that result in significant economic losses. Vaccines developed for VZV and PRV serve as useful models for the development of an HSV-1 vaccine. We present full genome sequence comparisons of the PRV vaccine strain Bartha, and two virulent PRV isolates, Kaplan and Becker. These genome sequences were determined by high-throughput sequencing and assembly, and present new insights into the attenuation of a mammalian alphaherpesvirus vaccine strain. We find many previously unknown coding differences between PRV Bartha and the virulent strains, including changes to the fusion proteins gH and gB, and over forty other viral proteins. Inter-strain variation in PRV protein sequences is much closer to levels previously observed for HSV-1 than for the highly stable VZV proteome. Almost 20% of the PRV genome contains tandem short sequence repeats (SSRs), a class of nucleic acids motifs whose length-variation has been associated with changes in DNA binding site efficiency, transcriptional regulation, and protein interactions. We find SSRs throughout the herpesvirus family, and provide the first global characterization of SSRs in viruses, both within and between strains. We find SSR length variation between different isolates of PRV and HSV-1, which may provide a new mechanism for phenotypic variation between strains. Finally, we detected a small number of polymorphic bases within each plaque-purified PRV strain, and we characterize the effect of passage and plaque-purification on these polymorphisms. These data add to growing evidence that even plaque-purified stocks of stable DNA viruses exhibit limited sequence heterogeneity, which likely seeds future strain evolution

Improvement on simultaneous determination of chromium species in aqueous solution by ion chromatography and chemiluminescence detection

A sensitive method for the simultaneous determination of chromium(III) and chromium(VI) was chromatography and chemiluminescence detection. Two Dionex ion-exchange guard columns in series, CG5 and AG7, were used to separate chromium(III) from chromium(VI). Chromium(VI) was reduced by potassium sulphite, whereupon both species were detected by use of the luminol-hydrogen peroxide chemiluminescence system. Parameters affecting retention times and resolution of the separator columns, such as eluent pH, eluent composition, reductant pH and concentration, and flow rates were optimized. Furthermore, the stabilities of reductant and luminol solutions were studied. The linear range of the calibration curve for chromium(III) and chromium(VI) was 1-400 mu g l(-1). The detection limit was 0.12 mu g l(-1) for chromium(III) and 0.09 mu g l(-1) for chromium(VI), respectively. The precision at the 20 mu g l(-1) level was 1.4% for chromium(III) and 2.5% for chromium(VI), respectively. The accuracy of the chromium(III) determination was determined by analysis of the NIST standard reference material 1643c, Trace elements in water with the result 19.1 +/- 1.0 mu g Cr(III) l(-1) (certified value 19.0 +/- 0.6 mu g Cr(III) l(-1)). The method was applied to analyse the stability of chromium patches for contact dermatitis testing. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.Chemistry, AnalyticalSCI(E)45ARTICLE1-3107-11335