A natural variation in the RNA polymerase of severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome virus enhances viral replication and in vivo virulence

Severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome (SFTS) is an emerging tick‐borne disease with high mortality in Eastern Asia. The disease is caused by the SFTS virus (SFTSV), also known as Dabie bandavirus , which has a segmented RNA genome consisting of L, M, and S segments. Previous studies have sugge...

Ausführliche Beschreibung

Gespeichert in:
Bibliographische Detailangaben
Veröffentlicht in:Journal of medical virology 2023-09, Vol.95 (9), p.e29099-e29099
Hauptverfasser: Jeon, Kyeongseok, Ro, Hyo‐Jin, Kang, Jun‐Gu, Jeong, Da‐Eun, Kim, Joowan, Lee, Yebeen, Yoon, Ga‐Yeon, Kang, Ju‐Il, Bae, Joon‐Yong, Kim, Jin Il, Park, Man‐Seong, Lee, Keun Hwa, Cho, Hyun‐Soo, Kim, Yuri, Cho, Nam‐Hyuk
Format: Artikel
Sprache:eng
Schlagworte:
Online-Zugang:Volltext
Tags: Tag hinzufügen
Keine Tags, Fügen Sie den ersten Tag hinzu!
Beschreibung
Zusammenfassung:Severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome (SFTS) is an emerging tick‐borne disease with high mortality in Eastern Asia. The disease is caused by the SFTS virus (SFTSV), also known as Dabie bandavirus , which has a segmented RNA genome consisting of L, M, and S segments. Previous studies have suggested differential viral virulence depending on the genotypes of SFTSV; however, the critical viral factor involved in the differential viral virulence is unknown. Here, we found a significant difference in viral replication in vitro and virulence in vivo between two Korean isolates belonging to the F and B genotypes, respectively. By generating viral reassortants using the two viral strains, we demonstrated that the L segment, which encodes viral RNA‐dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp), is responsible for the enhanced viral replication and virulence. Comparison of amino acid sequences and viral replication rates revealed a point variation, E251K, on the surface of RdRp to be the most significant determinant for the enhanced viral replication rate and in vivo virulence. The effect of the variation was further confirmed using recombinant SFTSV generated by reverse genetic engineering. Therefore, our results indicate that natural variations affecting the viral replicase activity could significantly contribute to the viral virulence of SFTSV.
ISSN:0146-6615
1096-9071
DOI:10.1002/jmv.29099