title: Noncytopathic replication of Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus and eastern equine encephalitis virus replicons in Mammalian cells.
abstract: Venezuelan equine encephalitis (VEE) and eastern equine encephalitis (EEE) viruses are important, naturally emerging zoonotic viruses. They are significant human and equine pathogens which still pose a serious public health threat. Both VEE and EEE cause chronic infection in mosquitoes and persistent or chronic infection in mosquito-derived cell lines. In contrast, vertebrate hosts infected with either virus develop an acute infection with high-titer viremia and encephalitis, followed by host death or virus clearance by the immune system. Accordingly, EEE and VEE infection in vertebrate cell lines is highly cytopathic. To further understand the pathogenesis of alphaviruses on molecular and cellular levels, we designed EEE- and VEE-based replicons and investigated their replication and their ability to generate cytopathic effect (CPE) and to interfere with other viral infections. VEE and EEE replicons appeared to be less cytopathic than Sindbis virus-based constructs that we designed in our previous research and readily established persistent replication in BHK-21 cells. VEE replicons required additional mutations in the 5' untranslated region and nsP2 or nsP3 genes to further reduce cytopathicity and to become capable of persisting in cells with no defects in alpha/beta interferon production or signaling. The results indicated that alphaviruses strongly differ in virus-host cell interactions, and the ability to cause CPE in tissue culture does not necessarily correlate with pathogenesis and strongly depends on the sequence of viral nonstructural proteins.
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Texas Medical Branch, 301 University Boulevard, Galveston, TX 77555-1019, USA. ivfrolov@utmb.edu
authors.forename: Olga
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Petrakova
authors.forename: Eugenia
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Volkova
authors.forename: Rodion
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Gorchakov
authors.forename: Slobodan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Paessler
authors.forename: Richard M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Kinney
authors.forename: Ilya
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Frolov
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D002460:Cell Line; D006224:Cricetinae; D003546:Cysteine Endopeptidases / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D003588:Cytopathogenic Effect, Viral; D004663:Encephalitis Virus, Eastern Equine / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism / Q000502:physiology*; D004666:Encephalitis Virus, Venezuelan Equine / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism / Q000502:physiology*; D006367:HeLa Cells; D006801:Humans; D051379:Mice; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D041681:NIH 3T3 Cells; D012367:RNA, Viral / Q000378:metabolism; D012093:Replicon / Q000502:physiology*; D017361:Viral Nonstructural Proteins / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D014779:Virus Replication / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D012367:RNA, Viral; D017361:Viral Nonstructural Proteins; C089383:nsp3 protein, alphavirus; D003546:Cysteine Endopeptidases; C078306:nsP2 proteinase