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A correlation between capsid protein VP2 and the plaque morphology of African horse sickness virus in cell culture

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Abstract

The attenuated live virus vaccine that is used in South Africa to protect against African horse sickness infection was developed more than 50 years ago. With the selection of the vaccine strains by cell culture passage, a correlation between the size of plaques formed in monolayer Vero cultures and attenuation of virus virulence in horses was found. The large plaque phenotype was used as an indication of cell culture adaptation and strongly correlated with attenuation of virulence in horses. There was never any investigation into the genetic causes of either the variation in plaque size, or the loss of virulence. An understanding of the underlying mechanisms of attenuation would benefit the production of a safer AHSV vaccine. To this end, the genomes of different strains of two African horse sickness isolates, producing varying plaque sizes, were compared and the differences between them identified. This comparison suggested that proteins VP2, VP3, VP5 and NS3 were most likely involved in the determination of the plaque phenotype. Comparison between genome sequences (obtained from GenBank) of low and high passage strains from two additional serotypes indicated that VP2 was the only protein with amino acid substitutions in all four serotypes. The amino acid substitutions all occurred within the same hydrophilic area, resulting in increased hydrophilicity of VP2 in the large plaque strains.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank Dr Jeanni Fehrsen for the critical review of the manuscript.

Funding

Funding was provided by Iternally funded, ARC.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Agricultural Research Council – Onderstepoort Veterinary Institute, 100 Old Soutpan Rd, Pretoria, South Africa

    Mathilde L. Schade-Weskott, Antoinette van Schalkwyk & J. J. O. Koekemoer

  2. Department of Veterinary Tropical Diseases, Faculty of Veterinary Science, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa

    Mathilde L. Schade-Weskott

Authors
  1. Mathilde L. Schade-Weskott
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  2. Antoinette van Schalkwyk
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  3. J. J. O. Koekemoer
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Contributions

MLSW: study design and execution, preparation of manuscript. AvS: genome sequencing and assembly, experimental set up, and reviewed the manuscript. JJOK: conceptualised the study, preparation of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Mathilde L. Schade-Weskott.

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No human or animal subjects were used in this study.

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Edited by Juergen A Richt.

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Schade-Weskott, M.L., van Schalkwyk, A. & Koekemoer, J.J.O. A correlation between capsid protein VP2 and the plaque morphology of African horse sickness virus in cell culture. Virus Genes 54, 527–535 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11262-018-1567-y

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