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Updated: Jun 8, 2026

Dissecting Host-virus Interaction in Lytic Replication of a Model Herpesvirus
Published on: October 7, 2011
Human herpesvirus 6 encoded glycoprotein Q1 gene is essential for virus growth
Huamin Tang1, Akiko Kawabata, Mayumi Yoshida
1Laboratory of Virology and Vaccinology, Division of Biomedical Research, National Institute of Biomedical Innovation, 7-6-8, Saito-Asagi, Ibaraki, Osaka 567-0085, Japan.
Abstract:
Human herpesvirus 6 (HHV-6) glycoprotein Q1 (gQ1), a unique gene in HHV-6, forms a complex with glycoproteinH (gH) and gL, which is the viral ligand for its cellular receptor, CD46. However, whether gQ1 is essential for virus growth is unknown, because a system is lacking for making gene knockouts for HHV-6. Recently, bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC) and E. coli mutagenesis techniques have been applied to herpesvirus investigation. Here we successfully inserted the HHV-6A genome into a BAC, and obtained reconstituted infectious virus from the HHV-6A-containing BAC DNA. Using this system, we generated a gQ1 mutant virus genome, which failed to yield reconstituted infectious virus, whereas its revertant virus could be produced, indicating that the HHV-6 gQ1 gene is essential for virus growth. Therefore, we successfully applied BAC and E. coli mutagenesis techniques to the study of HHV-6, and discovered that HHV-6 gQ1 is an essential gene for virus growth.
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