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Bacterial Artificial Chromosomes: A Functional Genomics Tool for the Study of Positive-strand RNA Viruses
Published on: December 29, 2015
Infectious clone construction of dengue virus type 2, strain Jamaican 1409, and characterization of a conditional E6
Dennis J Pierro1, Ma Isabel Salazar1, Barry J Beaty1
1Arthropod-borne and Infectious Disease Laboratory, Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Pathology, Colorado State University, Foothills Research Campus, Fort Collins, CO 80523, USA.
Abstract:
A full-length infectious cDNA clone (ic) was constructed from the genome of the dengue virus type 2 (DENV-2) Jamaica83 1409 strain, pBAC1409ic, by using a bacterial artifical chromosome plasmid system. Infectious virus was generated and characterized for growth in cell culture and for infection in Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. During construction, an isoleucine to methionine (Ile-->Met) change was found at position 6 in the envelope glycoprotein sequence between low- and high-passage DENV-2 1409 strains. In vitro-transcribed genomic RNA of 1409ic with E6-Ile produced infectious virions following electroporation in mosquito cells, but not mammalian cells, while 1409ic RNA with an E6-Met mutation produced virus in both cell types. Moreover, DENV-2 1409 with the E6-Ile residue produced syncytia in C6/36 cell culture, whereas viruses with E6-Met did not. However, in vitro cell culture-derived growth-curve data and in vivo mosquito-infection rates revealed that none of the analysed DENV-2 strains differed from each other.
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