Infectious cDNA clone of the epidemic west nile virus from New York City.

ABSTRACT: We report the first full-length infectious clone of the current epidemic, lineage I, strain of West Nile virus (WNV). The full-length cDNA was constructed from reverse transcription-PCR products of viral RNA from an isolate collected during the year 2000 outbreak in New York City. It was cloned into plasmid pBR322 under the control of a T7 promoter and stably amplified in Escherichia coli HB101. RNA transcribed from the full-length cDNA clone was highly infectious upon transfection into BHK-21 cells, resulting in progeny virus with titers of 1 x 10(9) to 5 x 10(9) PFU/ml. The cDNA clone was engineered to contain three silent nucleotide changes to create a StyI site (C to A and A to G at nucleotides [nt] 8859 and 8862, respectively) and to knock out an EcoRI site (A to G at nt 8880). These

SUBMITTER: Shi PY 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC136194 | biostudies-literature | 2002 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature