Generation of mutant Uukuniemi viruses lacking the nonstructural protein NSs by reverse genetics indicates that NSs Is a weak interferon antagonist

Rezelj, V. V., Överby, A. K. and Elliott, R. M. (2015) Generation of mutant Uukuniemi viruses lacking the nonstructural protein NSs by reverse genetics indicates that NSs Is a weak interferon antagonist. Journal of Virology, 89(9), pp. 4849-4856. (doi: 10.1128/JVI.03511-14) (PMID:25673721)

Abstract

Uukuniemi virus (UUKV) is a tick-borne member of the Phlebovirus genus (family Bunyaviridae) and has been widely used as a safe laboratory model to study aspects of bunyavirus replication. Recently, a number of new tick-borne phleboviruses have been discovered, some of which, like severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome virus and Heartland virus, are highly pathogenic in humans. UUKV could now serve as a useful comparator to understand the molecular basis for the different pathogenicities of these related viruses. We established a reverse-genetics system to recover UUKV entirely from cDNA clones. We generated two recombinant viruses, one in which the nonstructural protein NSs open reading frame was deleted from the S segment and one in which the NSs gene was replaced with green fluorescent protein (GFP), allowing convenient visualization of viral infection. We show that the UUKV NSs protein acts as a weak interferon antagonist in human cells but that it is unable to completely counteract the interferon response, which could serve as an explanation for its inability to cause disease in humans.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Elliott, Professor Richard
• Authors: Rezelj, V. V., Överby, A. K., and Elliott, R. M.
• College/School: College of Medical Veterinary and Life Sciences > School of Infection & Immunity
• Journal Name: Journal of Virology
• Journal Abbr.: J. Virol.
• Publisher: American Society for Microbiology
• ISSN: 0022-538X
• ISSN (Online): 1070-6321