CRISPR/Cas9-Constructed Pseudorabies Virus Mutants Reveal the Importance of UL13 in Alphaherpesvirus Escape from Genome Silencing.

ABSTRACT: Latent and recurrent productive infection of long-living cells, such as neurons, enables alphaherpesviruses to persist in their host populations. Still, the viral factors involved in these events remain largely obscure. Using a complementation assay in compartmented primary peripheral nervous system (PNS) neuronal cultures, we previously reported that productive replication of axonally delivered genomes is facilitated by pseudorabies virus (PRV) tegument proteins. Here, we sought to unravel the role of tegument protein UL13 in this escape from silencing. We first constructed four new PRV mutants in the virulent Becker strain using CRISPR/Cas9-mediated gene replacement: (i) PRV Becker defective for UL13 expression (PRV ΔUL13), (ii) PRV where UL13 is fused to eGFP (PRV UL13-eGFP), and two co

SUBMITTER: Van Cleemput J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8094956 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature