Attenuation of Avian Flavivirus by Rewiring the Leucine and Serine Codons of Its E-NS1 Protein toward Stop Mutation To Redirect Virus Evolution.

ABSTRACT: Recently, a new strategy for attenuating RNA viruses by redirecting their evolution in sequence space was confirmed for Enterovirus and Influenza viruses. Using avian flavivirus as a model, the 69 serine and 53 leucine codons on the E-NS1 genes were modified to change evolutionary direction of the viral sequence space. This means that all codons encoding serine or leucine residues were substituted with codons that are only one base different from the three stop codons, resulting in the initial position of the virus genome in sequence space being closer to the detrimental areas to achieve attenuation by reducing viral adaptability. The growth curve and plaque size of CQW1-one-to-stop (CQW1-OTS) were similar to those of CQW1-wild type (CQW1-WT) in vitro, but attenuated p

SUBMITTER: Guo J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9927255 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature