scholarly journals The Autographa californica Multiple Nucleopolyhedrovirus ORF78 Is Essential for Budded Virus Production and General Occlusion Body Formation

2013 ◽  
Vol 87 (15) ◽  
pp. 8441-8450 ◽  
Author(s):  
X. Y. Tao ◽  
J. Y. Choi ◽  
W. J. Kim ◽  
J. H. Lee ◽  
Q. Liu ◽  
...  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xingang Chen ◽  
Jian Yang ◽  
Xiaoqin Yang ◽  
Chengfeng Lei ◽  
Xiulian Sun ◽  
...  

Autographa californica multiple nucleopolyhedrovirus (AcMNPV) orf75 (ac75) is a highly conserved gene that is essential for AcMNPV propagation. However, the key domains or residues of the AC75 protein that play a role in viral propagation have not been identified. In this study, sequence alignment revealed that residues Phe-54 and Gln-81 of AC75 were highly conserved among alphabaculoviruses and betabaculoviurses. Thus, Phe-54 and Gln-81 AC75 mutation bacmids were constructed. We found that Gln-81 was not required for viral propagation, whereas mutating Phe-54 reduced budded virus production by 10-fold and impaired occlusion body formation when compared with that of the wild-type AcMNPV. Electron microscopy observations showed that the Phe-54 mutation affected polyhedrin assembly and also occlusion-derived virus embedding, whereas western blot analysis revealed that mutating Phe-54 reduced the amount of AC75 but did not affect the localization of AC75 in infected cells. A protein stability assay showed that the Phe-54 mutation affected AC75 stability. Taken together, Phe-54 was identified as an important residue of AC75, and ac75 is a pivotal gene in budding virus production and occlusion body formation.


2012 ◽  
Vol 93 (8) ◽  
pp. 1795-1803 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kamal M. Gandhi ◽  
Taro Ohkawa ◽  
Matthew D. Welch ◽  
Loy E. Volkman

Autographa californica multiple nucleopolyhedrovirus requires nuclear actin for progeny virus production and thereby encodes viral products that ensure actin’s translocation to and retention within the nucleus. Current evidence suggests that the ie0–ie1 gene complex along with five nuclear localization of actin (NLA) genes are sufficient for NLA in transient transfection experiments. Here we report that, during infection, only one of the five NLA genes, Ac102, was essential for NLA, and that AC102 had at least one other activity critical for budded virus (BV) production. Viral deletion mutants in the other four NLA genes were viable, with only two having replication phenotypes different from that of the wild type. Infection with AcΔpe38 revealed a delay in both BV production and NLA. Infection with AcΔ152 revealed a delay in BV production, but no corresponding delay in NLA. Infection with either AcΔpe38 or AcΔ152 resulted in slightly reduced BV titres. Deletion of Ac004 or he65 had no impact on actin translocation kinetics, timing of BV production or BV titres. These results implicate AC102 as a key player in baculovirus manipulation of actin.


2007 ◽  
Vol 88 (1) ◽  
pp. 114-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric B. Carstens ◽  
Yuntao Wu

The presence of homologous repeat (hr) regions in multiple locations within baculovirus genomes has led to the hypothesis that they represent origins of DNA replication. This hypothesis has been supported by transient replication assays where plasmids carrying hrs replicated in the presence of virus DNA replication. This study investigated whether any specific hr region was essential for viral DNA replication in vivo, by generating a series of recombinant Autographa californica multiple nucleopolyhedrovirus where the lacZ gene replaced hr1, hr1a, hr2, hr3, hr4a or hr4b. In addition, a double-hr knockout virus was constructed where both hr2 and hr3 were deleted. The successful construction of these knockout viruses indicated that no specific region was essential for virus production. These recombinant viruses were characterized by titrations of budded virus, expression of a variety of virus-specific proteins and the synthesis of viral DNA at various times after infection. The results demonstrated that each hr was dispensable for all of these properties and that no single region was absolutely essential for virus replication in cell culture. The functional significance of multiple origin regions is still unclear.


2005 ◽  
Vol 86 (6) ◽  
pp. 1619-1627 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ji-Hong Zhang ◽  
Taro Ohkawa ◽  
Jan O. Washburn ◽  
Loy E. Volkman

Ac150 is expressed late during infection of cultured lepidopteran insect cells by Autographa californica multiple nucleopolyhedrovirus. The Ac150 gene product is predicted to have a molecular mass of 11 161 Da and consists of a hydrophobic N terminus and a single ‘peritrophin-A’-like domain, connected by a short region of charged amino acids. An Ac150 deletion mutant and its parental wild-type virus were compared for differences in virulence by both oral and intrahaemocoelic routes of infection. It was found that the mutant was significantly less virulent in larvae of all three host species tested (Heliothis virescens, Spodoptera exigua and Trichoplusia ni) when occlusions were administered orally, but not when isolated occlusion-derived virus (ODV) was administered orally or budded virus was administered intrahaemocoelically. ODV yields were the same from equal numbers of mutant and wild-type occlusions, and nucleocapsid-distribution frequencies within the two ODV populations were the same, eliminating these features as explanations for the observed differences in virulence. Comparison of pathogenesis, as revealed by lacZ expression from identical reporter-gene cassettes in the mutant and wild-type virus, indicated that the mutant was less efficient at establishing primary infection in midgut cells; otherwise, it exhibited infection kinetics identical to those of wild-type virus. Ac150, therefore, can be considered a per os infection factor that mediates, but is not essential for, oral infection.


2009 ◽  
Vol 83 (15) ◽  
pp. 7440-7448 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jondavid de Jong ◽  
Basil M. Arif ◽  
David A. Theilmann ◽  
Peter J. Krell

ABSTRACT me53 is a highly conserved baculovirus gene found in all lepidopteran baculoviruses that have been fully sequenced to date. The putative ME53 protein contains a zinc finger domain and has been previously described as a major early transcript. We generated an me53-null bacmid (AcΔme53GFP), as well as a repair virus (AcRepME53:HA-GFP) carrying me53 with a C-terminal hemagglutinin (HA) tag, under the control of its native early and late promoter elements. Sf9 and BTI-Tn-5b1 cells transfected with AcΔme53GFP resulted in a 3-log reduction in budded-virus (BV) production compared to both the parental Autographa californica multiple nucleopolyhedrosis virus and the repair bacmids, demonstrating that although me53 is not essential for replication, replication is compromised in its absence. Our data also suggest that me53 does not affect DNA replication. Cell fractionation showed that ME53 is found in both the nucleus and the cytoplasm as early as 6 h postinfection. Deletion of the early transcriptional start site resulted in a 10- to 360-fold reduction of BV yield; however, deletion of the late promoter (ATAAG) resulted in a 160- to 1,000-fold reduction, suggesting that, in the context of BV production, ME53 is required both early and late in the infection cycle. Additional Western blot analysis of purified virions from the repair virus revealed that ME53:HA is associated with both BV and occlusion-derived virions. Together, these results indicate that me53, although not essential for viral replication, is required for efficient BV production.


2012 ◽  
Vol 93 (2) ◽  
pp. 364-373 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Gauthier ◽  
Kannan Thirunavukkarasu ◽  
Brian L. Faris ◽  
Darcy L. Russell ◽  
Robert F. Weaver

A temperature-sensitive (ts) Autographa californica multiple nucleopolyhedrovirus dual mutant, ts42, was generated that displayed tiny-plaque and polyhedral inclusion body (PIB)-defective phenotypes at 33 °C. The mutation responsible for the tiny-plaque phenotype was mapped to orf82, which was characterized as a late gene. Its product was not studied. The mutation responsible for the PIB-defective phenotype was mapped to a highly conserved region of lef-8, which encodes the largest subunit of the viral RNA polymerase. These mutations did not cause a global defect in viral DNA replication or a defect in the shutoff of host protein synthesis. However, the mutation in orf82 caused a dramatic defect in the production of progeny budded virus (BV) but did not decrease the infectivity of those BVs that were released. Hence, ORF82 is required for BV production. The mutation in lef-8 affected a conserved residue that is part of a highly conserved region of LEF-8. This mutation abolished very late transcription whilst altering the transcript size and level of transcription of two late genes.


2007 ◽  
Vol 81 (18) ◽  
pp. 9859-9869 ◽  
Author(s):  
Minggang Fang ◽  
Xiaojiang Dai ◽  
David A. Theilmann

ABSTRACT Autographa californica multiple nucleopolyhedrovirus (AcMNPV) exon0 (orf141) has been shown to be required for the efficient production of budded virus (BV). The deletion of exon0 reduces the level of BV production by up to 99% (X. Dai, T. M. Stewart, J. A. Pathakamuri, Q. Li, and D. A. Theilmann, J. Virol. 78:9633-9644, 2004); however, the function or mechanism by which EXON0 affects BV production is unknown. In this study, we further elucidated the function of EXON0 by investigating the localization of EXON0 in infected Sf9 cells and in virions and by identifying interactions between EXON0 and other viral proteins. In addition, electron microscopy was used to study the cellular localization of nucleocapsids in cells transfected with an exon0 knockout (KO) virus. The results showed that EXON0 was localized to both the cytoplasm and the nuclei of infected Sf9 cells throughout the infection. Western blotting results also showed that EXON0 was purified along with BV and occlusion-derived virus (ODV). The fractionation of BV into the nucleocapsid and envelope components showed that EXON0 localized to the BV nucleocapsid. Yeast two-hybrid screening, coimmunoprecipitation, and confocal microscopy revealed that it interacted with nucleocapsid proteins FP25 and BV/ODV-C42. Cells transfected with the exon0 KO virus exhibited normally appearing nucleocapsids in the nuclei in numbers equal to those in the nuclei of cells transfected with the EXON0 repaired virus. In contrast, the numbers of nucleocapsids in the cytoplasm of cells transfected with the exon0 KO virus were significantly lower than those in the cytoplasm of cells transfected with the repaired virus. These results support the conclusion that EXON0 is required in the BV pathway for the efficient egress of nucleocapsids from the nucleus to the cytoplasm.


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