The RL13 Temperance Factor Represses Replication of the Highly Cell Culture-Adapted Towne Strain of Human Cytomegalovirus.

ABSTRACT: Human cytomegalovirus (CMV) has evolved to replicate while causing minimal damage, maintain life-long latency, reactivate sub-clinically, and, in spite of robust host immunity, produce and shed infectious virus in order to transmit to new hosts. The CMV temperance factor RL13 may contribute to this strategy of coexistence with the host by actively restricting viral replication and spread. Viruses with an intact RL13 gene grow slowly in cell culture, release little extracellular virus, and form small foci. By contrast, viruses carrying disruptive mutations in the RL13 gene form larger foci and release higher amounts of cell-free infectious virions. Such mutations invariably arise during cell culture passage of clinical isolates and are consistently found in highly adapted stra

SUBMITTER: Ourahmane A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10142520 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature