Replication of modified vaccinia virus Ankara in primary chicken embryo fibroblasts requires expression of the interferon resistance gene E3L.

ABSTRACT: Highly attenuated modified vaccinia virus Ankara (MVA) serves as a candidate vaccine to immunize against infectious diseases and cancer. MVA was randomly obtained by serial growth in cultures of chicken embryo fibroblasts (CEF), resulting in the loss of substantial genomic information including many genes regulating virus-host interactions. The vaccinia virus interferon (IFN) resistance gene E3L is among the few conserved open reading frames encoding viral immune defense proteins. To investigate the relevance of E3L in the MVA life cycle, we generated the deletion mutant MVA-DeltaE3L. Surprisingly, we found that MVA-DeltaE3L had lost the ability to grow in CEF, which is the first finding of a vaccinia virus host range phenotype in this otherwise highly permissive cell culture. Reinsertion

SUBMITTER: Hornemann S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC165266 | biostudies-literature | 2003 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature