Attenuation of a very virulent Marek's disease herpesvirus (MDV) by codon pair bias deoptimization.

ABSTRACT: Codon pair bias deoptimization (CPBD) has enabled highly efficient and rapid attenuation of RNA viruses. The technique relies on recoding of viral genes by increasing the number of codon pairs that are statistically underrepresented in protein coding genes of the viral host without changing the amino acid sequence of the encoded proteins. Utilization of naturally underrepresented codon pairs reduces protein production of recoded genes and directly causes virus attenuation. As a result, the mutant virus is antigenically identical with the parental virus, but virulence is reduced or absent. Our goal was to determine if a virus with a large double-stranded DNA genome, highly oncogenic Marek's disease virus (MDV), can be attenuated by CPBD. We recoded UL30 that encodes the catalytic subunit of

SUBMITTER: Eschke K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5805365 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature