Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 4, 2026

Bacterial Artificial Chromosomes: A Functional Genomics Tool for the Study of Positive-strand RNA Viruses
Published on: December 29, 2015
Recovery of a chemically synthesized Japanese encephalitis virus reveals two critical adaptive mutations in NS2B and
Xiao-Dan Li1,2, Xiao-Feng Li3, Han-Qing Ye2
1University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, PR China.
Abstract:
A full-length genome infectious clone is a powerful tool for functional assays in virology. In this study, using a chemical synthesized complete genome of Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV) strain SA14 (GenBank accession no. U14163), we constructed a full-length genomic cDNA clone of JEV. The recovered virus from the cDNA clone replicated poorly in baby hamster kidney (BHK-21) cells and in suckling mice brain. Following serial passage in BHK-21 cells, adaptive mutations within the NS2B and NS4A proteins were recovered in the passaged viruses leading to viruses with a large-plaque phenotype. Mutagenesis analysis, using a genome-length RNA and a replicon of JEV, demonstrated that the adaptive mutations restored replication to different degrees, and the restoration efficiencies were in the order: NS2B-T102M
Related Concept Videos
Encephalitis ll: Pathophysiology
Arboviral Encephalitis
Leaky Scanning
Encephalitis l: Introduction
Viral Mutations

