Establishment of reverse genetics system of betanodavirus for the efficient recovery of infectious particles

Naoki Takizawa, Kei Adachi, Nobuyuki Kobayashi

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

11 Scopus citations

Abstract

Betanodaviruses, a member of the family Nodaviridae, have small positive-stranded bipartite RNA genomes and are the causal agent of viral nervous necrosis in marine-farmed fish. To facilitate the study of betanodavirus, infectious cDNA clones of its two genomic RNAs were generated. The full-length cDNA of the new Redspotted grouper nervous necrosis virus strain (SG2001Nag) RNA1 and RNA2 were co-transcribed by T7 RNA polymerase in baby hamster kidney cells expressing T7 RNA polymerase. The transcription of precise viral RNAs from cDNAs neither lead to viral protein synthesis nor the production of infectious particles. However, the additional two guanine residues following T7 promoter increased the transcription of viral RNAs from cDNAs, and 1.0 × 106 TCID50/ml of infectious particles was collected from the transfected cells. The ability to reproduce the entire life cycle of betanodavirus from cDNA clones by this reverse genetics system would therefore facilitate a further analysis of the mechanism of betanodavirus RNA replication, structure, and assembly. These findings may thus help in the future development of a betanodavirus vaccine.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)271-276
Number of pages6
JournalJournal of Virological Methods
Volume151
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Aug 2008
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Betanodavirus
  • Fish virus
  • Infectious cDNA
  • Reverse genetics

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Virology

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