Tula hantavirus isolate with the full-length ORF for nonstructural protein NSs survives for more consequent passages in interferon-competent cells than the isolate having truncated NSs ORF.
BACKGROUND
The competitiveness of two Tula hantavirus (TULV) isolates, TULV/Lodz and TULV/Moravia, was evaluated in interferon (IFN) -competent and IFN-deficient cells. The two isolates differ in the length of the open reading frame (ORF) encoding the nonstructural protein NSs, which has previously been shown to inhibit IFN response in infected cells.


RESULTS
In IFN-deficient Vero E6 cells both TULV isolates survived equally well. In contrast, in IFN-competent MRC5 cells TULV/Lodz isolate, that possesses the NSs ORF for the full-length protein of 90 aa, survived for more consequent passages than TULV/Moravia isolate, which contains the ORF for truncated NSs protein (66-67 aa).


CONCLUSIONS
Our data show that expression of a full-length NSs protein is beneficial for the virus survival and competitiveness in IFN-competent cells and not essential in IFN-deficient cells. These results suggest that the N-terminal aa residues are important for the full activity of the NSs protein.
Jääskeläinen
Kirsi M
KM
Department of Virology, Haartman Institute, PO Box 21, FIN-00014 University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland. Kirsi.M.Jaaskelainen@helsinki.fi
Plyusnina
Angelina
A
Lundkvist
Ake
A
Vaheri
Antti
A
Plyusnin
Alexander
A
D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D002460:Cell Line; D006476:Orthohantavirus / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000235:genetics / Q000254:growth & development; D018778:Hantavirus Infections / Q000276:immunology / Q000821:virology*; D006801:Humans; D007372:Interferons / Q000172:deficiency / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D016366:Open Reading Frames / Q000235:genetics; D016415:Sequence Alignment; D012692:Serial Passage; D017361:Viral Nonstructural Proteins / Q000235:genetics*
D017361:Viral Nonstructural Proteins; D007372:Interferons