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The recent reemergence of yellow fever virus (YFV) in Brazil has raised serious concerns due to the rapid dissemination of the virus in the southeastern region. To better understand YFV genetic diversity and dynamics during the recent outbreak in southeastern Brazil, we generated 18 complete and nearly complete genomes from the peak of the epidemic curve from nonhuman primates (NHPs) and human infected cases across the Espírito Santo and Rio de Janeiro states. Genomic sequencing of 18 YFV genomes revealed the estimated timing, source, and likely routes of yellow fever virus transmission and dispersion during one of the largest outbreaks ever registered in Brazil. We showed that during the recent epidemic, YFV was reintroduced from Minas Gerais to the Espírito Santo and Rio de Janeiro states multiple times between 2016 and 2019. The analysis of data from portable sequencing could identify the corridor of spread of YFV. These findings reinforce the idea that continued genomic surveillance strategies can provide information on virus genetic diversity and transmission dynamics that might assist in understanding arbovirus epidemics. IMPORTANCE Arbovirus infections in Brazil, including yellow fever, dengue, zika, and chikungunya, result in considerable morbidity and mortality and are pressing public health concerns. However, our understanding of these outbreaks is hampered by the limited availability of genomic data. In this study, we investigated the genetic diversity and spatial distribution of YFV during the current outbreak by analyzing genomic data from areas in southeastern Brazil not covered by other previous studies. To gain insights into the routes of YFV introduction and dispersion, we tracked the virus by sequencing YFV genomes sampled from nonhuman primates and infected patients from the southeastern region. Our study provides an understanding of how YFV initiates transmission in new Brazilian regions and illustrates that genomics in the field can augment traditional approaches to infectious disease surveillance and control., (Copyright © 2019 American Society for Microbiology.)

Arboviruses such as yellow fever virus (YFV) are transmitted between arthropod vectors and vertebrate hosts. While barriers limiting arbovirus population diversity have been observed in mosquitoes, whether barriers exist in vertebrate hosts is unclear. To investigate whether arboviruses encounter bottlenecks during dissemination in the vertebrate host, we infected immunocompetent mice and immune-deficient mice lacking alpha/beta interferon (IFN-α/β) receptors (IFNAR⁻/⁻ mice) with a pool of genetically marked viruses to evaluate dissemination and host barriers. We used the live attenuated vaccine strain YFV-17D, which contains many mutations compared with virulent YFV. We found that intramuscularly injected immunocompetent mice did not develop disease and that viral dissemination was restricted. Conversely, 32% of intramuscularly injected IFNAR⁻/⁻ mice developed disease. By following the genetically marked viruses over time, we found broad dissemination in IFNAR⁻/⁻ mice followed by clearance. The patterns of viral dissemination were similar in mice that developed disease and mice that did not develop disease. Unlike our previous results with poliovirus, these results suggest that YFV-17D encounters no major barriers during dissemination within a vertebrate host in the absence of the type I IFN response.

Cells and mice infected with arthropod-borne flaviviruses produce a small subgenomic RNA that is colinear with the distal part of the viral 3'-untranslated region (UTR). This small subgenomic flavivirus RNA (sfRNA) results from the incomplete degradation of the viral genome by the host 5'-3' exonuclease XRN1. Production of the sfRNA is important for the pathogenicity of the virus. This study not only presents a detailed description of the yellow fever virus (YFV) sfRNA but, more importantly, describes for the first time the molecular characteristics of the stalling site for XRN1 in the flavivirus genome. Similar to the case for West Nile virus, the YFV sfRNA was produced by XRN1. However, in contrast to the case for other arthropod-borne flaviviruses, not one but two sfRNAs were detected in YFV-infected mammalian cells. The smaller of these two sfRNAs was not observed in infected mosquito cells. The larger sfRNA could also be produced in vitro by incubation with purified XRN1. These two YFV sfRNAs formed a 5'-nested set. The 5' ends of the YFV sfRNAs were found to be just upstream of the previously predicted RNA pseudoknot PSK3. RNA structure probing and mutagenesis studies provided strong evidence that this pseudoknot structure was formed and served as the molecular signal to stall XRN1. The sequence involved in PSK3 formation was cloned into the Sinrep5 expression vector and shown to direct the production of an sfRNA-like RNA. These results underscore the importance of the RNA pseudoknot in stalling XRN1 and also demonstrate that it is the sole viral requirement for sfRNA production.

A molecular clone of yellow fever virus (YFV) strain 17D was used to identify critical determinants of mouse neuroinvasiveness previously localized to domain III of the neuroadapted SPYF-MN virus envelope protein. Three candidate virulence substitutions (305F-->V, 326K-->E, and 380R-->T) were individually evaluated for their roles in this phenotype in a SCID mouse model. The virus containing a glutamic acid residue at position 326 of the envelope protein (326E) caused rapidly lethal encephalitis, with a mortality rate and average survival time resembling those of the parental SPYF-MN virus. Determinants at positions 380 (380T) and 305 (305V) did not independently affect neuroinvasiveness. Testing a panel of viruses with various amino acid substitutions at position 326 revealed that attenuation of neuroinvasiveness required a positively charged residue (lysine or arginine) at this position. Molecular-modeling studies suggest that residues 326 and 380 contribute to charge clusters on the lateral surface of domain III that constitute putative heparin binding sites, as confirmed by studies of heparin inhibition of plaque formation. The neuroinvasiveness of YFVs in the SCID model correlated inversely with sensitivity to heparin. These findings establish that residue 326 in domain III of the E protein is a critical determinant of YFV neuroinvasiveness in the SCID mouse model. Together with modeling of domain III from virulent YFV strains, the data suggest that heparin binding activity involving lysine at position 326 may be a modulator of YFV virulence phenotypes.

The class II fusion proteins of the alphaviruses and flaviviruses mediate virus infection by driving the fusion of the virus membrane with that of the cell. These fusion proteins are triggered by low pH, and their structures are strikingly similar in both the prefusion dimer and the postfusion homotrimer conformations. Here we have compared cholesterol interactions during membrane fusion by these two groups of viruses. Using cholesterol-depleted insect cells, we showed that fusion and infection by the alphaviruses Semliki Forest virus (SFV) and Sindbis virus were strongly promoted by cholesterol, with similar sterol dependence in laboratory and field isolates and in viruses passaged in tissue culture. The E1 fusion protein from SFV bound cholesterol, as detected by labeling with photocholesterol and by cholesterol extraction studies. In contrast, fusion and infection by numerous strains of the flavivirus dengue virus (DV) and by yellow fever virus 17D were cholesterol independent, and the DV fusion protein did not show significant cholesterol binding. SFV E1 is the first virus fusion protein demonstrated to directly bind cholesterol. Taken together, our results reveal important functional differences conferred by the cholesterol-binding properties of class II fusion proteins.

The yellow fever virus (YFV) 17D strain is one of the most effective live vaccines for human use, but the in vivo mechanisms for virulence attenuation of the vaccine and the corresponding molecular determinants remain elusive. The vaccine differs phenotypically from wild-type YFV by the loss of viscerotropism, despite replicative fitness in cell culture, and genetically by 20 amino acid changes predominantly located in the envelope (E) protein. We show that three residues in E protein domain III inhibit spread of 17D in extraneural tissues and attenuate virulence in type I/II interferon-deficient mice. One of these residues (Arg380) is a dominant glycosaminoglycan-binding determinant, which mainly accounts for more rapid in vivo clearance of 17D from the bloodstream in comparison to 17D-derived variants with wild-type-like E protein. While other mutations will account for loss of neurotropism and phenotypic stability, the described impact of E protein domain III changes on virus dissemination and virulence is the first rational explanation for the safety of the 17D vaccine in humans.

The 3' noncoding region (3' NCR) of flaviviruses contains secondary and tertiary structures essential for virus replication. Previous studies of yellow fever virus (YFV) and dengue virus have found that modifications to the 3' NCR are sometimes associated with attenuation in vertebrate and/or mosquito hosts. The 3' NCRs of 117 isolates of South American YFV have been examined, and major deletions and/or duplications of conserved RNA structures have been identified in several wild-type isolates. Nineteen isolates (designated YF-XL isolates) from Brazil, Trinidad, and Venezuela, dating from 1973 to 2001, exhibited a 216-nucleotide (nt) duplication, yielding a tandem repeat of conserved hairpin, stem-loop, dumbbell, and pseudoknot structures. YF-XL isolates were found exclusively within one subclade of South American genotype I YFV. One Brazilian isolate exhibited, in addition to the 216-nt duplication, a deletion of a 40-nt repeated hairpin (RYF) motif (YF-XL-DeltaRYF). To investigate the biological significance of these 3' NCR rearrangements, YF-XL-DeltaRYF and YF-XL isolates, as well as other South American YFV isolates, were evaluated for three phenotypes: growth kinetics in cell culture, neuroinvasiveness in suckling mice, and ability to replicate and produce disseminated infections in Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. YF-XL-DeltaRYF and YF-XL isolates showed growth kinetics and neuroinvasive characteristics comparable to those of typical South American YFV isolates, and mosquito infectivity trials demonstrated that both types of 3' NCR variants were capable of replication and dissemination in a laboratory-adapted colony of A. aegypti.

A chimeric yellow fever-dengue 1 (ChimeriVax-DEN1) virus was produced by the transfection of Vero cells with chimeric in vitro RNA transcripts. The cell culture supernatant was subjected to plaque purification for the identification of a vaccine candidate without mutations. Of 10 plaque-purified clones, 1 containing no mutation (clone J) was selected for production of the vaccine virus. During subsequent cell culture passaging of this clone for vaccine production, a single amino acid substitution (K to R) occurred in the envelope (E) protein at residue 204 (E204) (F. Guirakhoo, K. Pugachev, Z. Zhang, G. Myers, I. Levenbook, K. Draper, J. Lang, S. Ocran, F. Mitchell, M. Parsons, N. Brown, S. Brandler, C. Fournier, B. Barrere, F. Rizvi, A. Travassos, R. Nichols, D. Trent, and T. Monath, J. Virol. 78:4761-4775, 2004). The same mutation was observed in another clone (clone E). This mutation attenuated the virus in 4-day-old suckling mice inoculated by the intracerebral (i.c.) route and led to reduced viremia in monkeys inoculated by the subcutaneous or i.c. route. The histopathology scores of lesions in the brain tissue of monkeys inoculated with either the E204K or E204R virus were reduced compared to those for monkeys inoculated with the reference virus, a commercial yellow fever 17D vaccine (YF-VAX). Both viruses grew to significantly lower titers than YF-VAX in HepG2, a human hepatoma cell line. After intrathoracic inoculation into mosquitoes, both viruses grew to a similar level as YF-VAX, which was significantly lower than that of their wild-type DEN1 parent virus. A comparison of the E-protein structures of nonmutant and mutant viruses suggested the appearance of new intramolecular bonds between residues 204R, 261H, and 257E in the mutant virus. These changes may be responsible for virus attenuation through a change in the pH threshold for virus envelope fusion with the host cell membrane., (Copyright 2004 American Society for Microbiology)

A chimeric flavivirus infectious cDNA was constructed by exchanging the premembrane (prM) and envelope (E) genes of the yellow fever virus vaccine strain 17D (YF17D) with the corresponding genes of Modoc virus (MOD). This latter virus belongs to the cluster of the "not-known vector" flaviviruses and is, unlike YF17D, neuroinvasive in SCID mice. Replication of in vitro-transcribed RNA from this chimeric flavivirus was shown by [(3)H]uridine labeling and RNA analysis. Expression of the MOD prM and E proteins was monitored by radioimmunoprecipitation and revealed that the MOD proteins were correctly and efficiently produced from the chimeric precursor protein. The MOD E protein was shown to be N-linked glycosylated, whereas prM, as predicted from the genome sequence, did not contain N-linked carbohydrates. In Vero cells, the chimeric virus replicated with a similar efficiency as the parental viruses, although it formed smaller plaques than YF17D and MOD. In SCID mice that had been infected intraperitoneally with the chimeric virus, the viral load increased steadily until death. The MOD/YF virus, like MOD from which it had acquired the prM and E structural proteins, but unlike YF, proved neuroinvasive in SCID mice. Animals developed neurological symptoms about 15 days after inoculation and died shortly thereafter. The distribution of MOD/YF RNA in the brain of infected mice was similar to that observed in MOD-infected mice. The observations provide compelling evidence that the determinants of neuroinvasiveness of flaviviruses are entirely located in the envelope proteins prM and E.

A molecular clone of mouse-neuroadapted yellow fever 17D virus (SPYF-MN) was used to identify critical determinants of viral neuroinvasiveness in a SCID mouse model. Virus derived from this clone differs from nonneuroinvasive YF5.2iv virus at 29 nucleotide positions, encoding 13 predicted amino acid substitutions and 2 substitutions in the 3' untranslated region (UTR). The virulence determinants of SPYF-MN for SCID mice were identified by constructing and characterizing intratypic viruses in which the E protein of SPYF-MN was expressed in the YF5.2iv background (SPYF-E) or the E protein of YF5.2iv was expressed in the SPYF-MN background (YF5.2-E). SPYF-E caused lethal encephalitis in young adult SCID mice after intraperitoneal inoculation, with average survival times and tissue virus burdens resembling those of mice inoculated with the parental SPYF-MN virus. To define which domains of the E protein are involved in neuroinvasiveness, two viruses were tested in which the amino acid substitutions in domains I-II and III were segregated. This revealed that substitutions in domain III (residues 305, 326, and 380) were critical for the neuroinvasive phenotype, based on average survival times and tissue burdens of infectious virus. Comparison of growth properties of the various intratypic viruses in cell culture indicated that no inherent defects in replication efficiency were likely to account for the biological differences observed in these experiments. These findings demonstrate that the E protein is a critical factor for yellow fever virus neuropathogenesis in the SCID mouse model and that the neuroinvasive properties depend principally on functions contributed by domain III of this protein. To assess whether critical determinants for neuroinvasion of normal ICR mice by SPYF virus were also in the E protein, sequences of viruses recovered from brains of ICR mice succumbing to encephalitis with the parental SPYF virus were derived. No differences were found in the E protein; however, two substitutions were present in the 3' UTR compared to that of SPYF-MN, one of which is predicted to alter RNA secondary structure in this region. These findings suggest that the 3' UTR may also affect neuroinvasiveness of SPYF virus in the mouse model.

Two yellow fever virus (YFV)/dengue virus chimeras which encode the prM and E proteins of either dengue virus serotype 2 (dengue-2 virus) or dengue-4 virus within the genome of the YFV 17D strain (YF5.2iv infectious clone) were constructed and characterized for their properties in cell culture and as experimental vaccines in mice. The prM and E proteins appeared to be properly processed and glycosylated, and in plaque reduction neutralization tests and other assays of antigenic specificity, the E proteins exhibited profiles which resembled those of the homologous dengue virus serotypes. Both chimeric viruses replicated in cell lines of vertebrate and mosquito origin to levels comparable to those of homologous dengue viruses but less efficiently than the YF5.2iv parent. YFV/dengue-4 virus, but not YFV/dengue-2 virus, was neurovirulent for 3-week-old mice by intracerebral inoculation; however, both viruses were attenuated when administered by the intraperitoneal route in mice of that age. Single-dose inoculation of either chimeric virus at a dose of 10(5) PFU by the intraperitoneal route induced detectable levels of neutralizing antibodies against the homologous dengue virus strains. Mice which had been immunized in this manner were fully protected from challenge with homologous neurovirulent dengue viruses by intracerebral inoculation compared to unimmunized mice. Protection was associated with significant increases in geometric mean titers of neutralizing antibody compared to those for unimmunized mice. These data indicate that YFV/dengue virus chimeras elicit antibodies which represent protective memory responses in the mouse model of dengue encephalitis. The levels of neurovirulence and immunogenicity of the chimeric viruses in mice correlate with the degree of adaptation of the dengue virus strain to mice. This study supports ongoing investigations concerning the use of this technology for development of a live attenuated viral vaccine against dengue viruses.

Serial passage of yellow fever 17D virus (YF5.2iv, derived from an infectious molecular clone) on mouse neuroblastoma (NB41A3) cells established a persistent noncytopathic infection associated with a variant virus. This virus (NB15a) was dramatically reduced in plaque formation and exhibited impaired replication kinetics on all cell lines examined compared to the parental virus. Nucleotide sequence analysis of NB15a revealed a substitution in domain III of the envelope (E) protein at residue 360, where an aspartic acid residue was replaced by glycine. Single mutations were also found within the NS2A and NS3 proteins. Engineering of YF5.2iv virus to contain the E(360) substitution yielded a virus (G360 mutant) whose plaque size and growth efficiency in cell culture resembled those of NB15a. Compared with YF5.2iv, both NB15a and G360 were markedly restricted for spread through Vero cell monolayers and mildly restricted in C6/36 cells. On NB41A3 cells, spread of the viruses was similar, but all three were generally inefficient compared with spread in other cell lines. Compared to YF5.2iv virus, NB15a was uniformly impaired in its ability to penetrate different cell lines, but a difference in cell surface binding was detected only on NB41A3 cells, where NB15a appeared less efficient. Despite its small plaque size, impaired growth, and decreased penetration efficiency, NB15a did not differ from YF5.2iv in mouse neurovirulence testing, based on mortality rates and average survival times after intracerebral inoculation of young adult mice. The data indicate that persistence of yellow fever virus in NB41A3 cells is associated with a mutation in the receptor binding domain of the E protein that impairs the virus entry process in cell culture. However, the phenotypic changes which occur in the virus as a result of the persistent infection in vitro do not correlate with attenuation during pathogenesis in the mouse central nervous system.

Little is known about the function of flavivirus nonstructural protein NS2A. Two forms of NS2A are found in yellow fever virus-infected cells. Full-length NS2A (224 amino acids) is the product of cleavage at the NS1/2A and NS2A/2B sites. NS2Aalpha, a C-terminally truncated form of 190 amino acids, results from partial cleavage by the viral NS2B-3 serine protease at the sequence QK /T within NS2A. Exchange of serine for lysine at this site (QKT-->QST) blocks the production of both NS2Aalpha and infectious virus. The present study reveals that this defect is not at the level of RNA replication. Despite normal structural region processing, infectious particles containing genome RNA and capsid protein were not released from cells transfected with the mutant RNA. Nevertheless, production of subviral prM/M- and E-containing particles was unimpaired. The NS2A defect could be complemented in trans by providing NS1-2A or NS1-2Aalpha. However, trans complementation was not observed when the C-terminal lysine of NS1-2Aalpha was replaced with serine. In addition to true reversions, NS2Aalpha cleavage site mutations could be suppressed by two classes of second-site changes. The first class consisted of insertions at the NS2Aalpha cleavage site that restored its basic character and cleavability. A second class of suppressors occurred in the NS3 helicase domain, in which NS3 aspartate 343 was replaced with an uncharged residue (either valine, alanine, or glycine). These mutations in NS3 restored infectious-virus production in the absence of cleavage at the mutant NS2Aalpha site. Taken together, our results reveal an unexpected role for NS2A and NS3 in the assembly and/or release of infectious flavivirus particles.

A chimeric yellow fever (YF) virus/Japanese encephalitis (JE) virus vaccine (ChimeriVax-JE) was constructed by insertion of the prM-E genes from the attenuated JE virus SA14-14-2 vaccine strain into a full-length cDNA clone of YF 17D virus. Passage in fetal rhesus lung (FRhL) cells led to the emergence of a small-plaque virus containing a single Met-->Lys amino acid mutation at E279, reverting this residue from the SA14-14-2 to the wild-type amino acid. A similar virus was also constructed by site-directed mutagenesis (J. Arroyo, F. Guirakhoo, S. Fenner, Z.-X. Zhang, T. P. Monath, and T. J. Chambers, J. Virol. 75:934-942, 2001). The E279 mutation is located in a beta-sheet in the hinge region of the E protein that is responsible for a pH-dependent conformational change during virus penetration from the endosome into the cytoplasm of the infected cell. In independent transfection-passage studies with FRhL or Vero cells, mutations appeared most frequently in hinge 4 (bounded by amino acids E266 to E284), reflecting genomic instability in this functionally important region. The E279 reversion caused a significant increase in neurovirulence as determined by the 50% lethal dose and survival distribution in suckling mice and by histopathology in rhesus monkeys. Based on sensitivity and comparability of results with those for monkeys, the suckling mouse is an appropriate host for safety testing of flavivirus vaccine candidates for neurotropism. After intracerebral inoculation, the E279 Lys virus was restricted with respect to extraneural replication in monkeys, as viremia and antibody levels (markers of viscerotropism) were significantly reduced compared to those for the E279 Met virus. These results are consistent with the observation that empirically derived vaccines developed by mouse brain passage of dengue and YF viruses have increased neurovirulence for mice but reduced viscerotropism for humans.

A neuroadapted strain of yellow fever virus (YFV) 17D derived from a multiply mouse brain-passaged virus (Porterfield YF17D) was additionally passaged in SCID and normal mice. The virulence properties of this virus (SPYF) could be distinguished from nonneuroadapted virus (YF5.2iv, 17D infectious clone) by decreased average survival time in SCID mice after peripheral inoculation, decreased average survival time in normal adult mice after intracerebral inoculation, and occurrence of neuroinvasiveness in normal mice. SPYF exhibited more efficient growth in peripheral tissues of SCID mice than YF5.2iv, resulting in a more rapid accumulation of virus burden, but with low-titer viremia, at the time of fatal encephalitis. In cell culture, SPYF was less efficient in replication than YF5.2iv in all cell lines tested. The complete nucleotide sequence of SPYF revealed 29 nucleotide substitutions relative to YF5.2iv, and these were distributed throughout the genome. There were a total of 13 predicted amino acid substitutions, some of which correspond to known differences among the Asibi, French viscerotropic virus, French neurotropic vaccine, and YF17D vaccine strains. The envelope (E) protein contained five substitutions, within all three functional domains. Substitutions were also present in regions encoding the NS1, NS2A, NS4A, and NS5 proteins and in the 3' untranslated region (UTR). Construction of YFV harboring all of the identified coding nucleotide substitutions and those in the 3' UTR yielded a virus whose cell culture and pathogenic properties, particularly neurovirulence and neuroinvasiveness for SCID mice, generally resembled those of the original SPYF isolate. These findings implicate the E protein and possibly other regions of the genome as virulence determinants during pathogenesis of neuroadapted YF17D virus in mice. The determinants affect replication efficiency in both neural and extraneural tissues of the mouse and confer some limited host-range differences in cultured cells of nonmurine origin.

A chimeric yellow fever (YF)-dengue type 2 (dengue-2) virus (ChimeriVax-D2) was constructed using a recombinant cDNA infectious clone of a YF vaccine strain (YF 17D) as a backbone into which we inserted the premembrane (prM) and envelope (E) genes of dengue-2 virus (strain PUO-218 from a case of dengue fever in Bangkok, Thailand). The chimeric virus was recovered from the supernatant of Vero cells transfected with RNA transcripts and amplified once in these cells to yield a titer of 6.3 log(10) PFU/ml. The ChimeriVax-D2 was not neurovirulent for 4-week-old outbred mice inoculated intracerebrally. This virus was evaluated in rhesus monkeys for its safety (induction of viremia) and protective efficacy (induction of anti-dengue-2 neutralizing antibodies and protection against challenge). In one experiment, groups of non-YF-immune monkeys received graded doses of ChimeriVax-D2; a control group received only the vaccine diluents. All monkeys (except the control group) developed a brief viremia and showed no signs of illness. Sixty-two days postimmunization, animals were challenged with 5.0 log(10) focus forming units (FFU) of a wild-type dengue-2 virus. No viremia (<1.7 log(10) FFU/ml) was detected in any vaccinated group, whereas all animals in the placebo control group developed viremia. All vaccinated monkeys developed neutralizing antibodies in a dose-dependent response. In another experiment, viremia and production of neutralizing antibodies were determined in YF-immune monkeys that received either ChimeriVax-D2 or a wild-type dengue-2 virus. Low viremia was detected in ChimeriVax-D2-inoculated monkeys, whereas all dengue-2-immunized animals became viremic. All of these animals were protected against challenge with a wild-type dengue-2 virus, whereas all YF-immune monkeys and nonimmune controls became viremic upon challenge. Genetic stability of ChimeriVax-D2 was assessed by continuous in vitro passage in VeroPM cells. The titer of ChimeriVax-D2, the attenuated phenotype for 4-week-old mice, and the sequence of the inserted prME genes were unchanged after 18 passages in Vero cells. The high replication efficiency, attenuation phenotype in mice and monkeys, immunogenicity and protective efficacy, and genomic stability of ChimeriVax-D2 justify it as a novel vaccine candidate to be evaluated in humans.

ChimeriVax-JE is a live, attenuated recombinant virus prepared by replacing the genes encoding two structural proteins (prM and E) of yellow fever 17D virus with the corresponding genes of an attenuated strain of Japanese encephalitis virus (JE), SA14-14-2 (T. J. Chambers et al., J. Virol. 73:3095-3101, 1999). Since the prM and E proteins contain antigens conferring protective humoral and cellular immunity, the immune response to vaccination is directed principally at JE. The prM-E genome sequence of the ChimeriVax-JE in diploid fetal rhesus lung cells (FRhL, a substrate acceptable for human vaccines) was identical to that of JE SA14-14-2 vaccine and differed from sequences of virulent wild-type strains (SA14 and Nakayama) at six amino acid residues in the envelope gene (E107, E138, E176, E279, E315, and E439). ChimeriVax-JE was fully attenuated for weaned mice inoculated by the intracerebral (i.c.) route, whereas commercial yellow fever 17D vaccine (YF-Vax) caused lethal encephalitis with a 50% lethal dose of 1.67 log(10) PFU. Groups of four rhesus monkeys were inoculated by the subcutaneous route with 2.0, 3.0, 4.0, and 5. 0 log(10) PFU of ChimeriVax-JE. All 16 monkeys developed low viremias (mean peak viremia, 1.7 to 2.1 log(10) PFU/ml; mean duration, 1.8 to 2.3 days). Neutralizing antibodies appeared between days 6 and 10; by day 30, neutralizing antibody responses were similar across dose groups. Neutralizing antibody titers to the homologous (vaccine) strain were higher than to the heterologous wild-type JE strains. All immunized monkeys and sham-immunized controls were challenged i.c. on day 54 with 5.2 log(10) PFU of wild-type JE. None of the immunized monkeys developed viremia or illness and had mild residual brain lesions, whereas controls developed viremia, clinical encephalitis, and severe histopathologic lesions. Immunized monkeys developed significant (>/=4-fold) increases in serum and cerebrospinal fluid neutralizing antibodies after i.c. challenge. In a standardized test for neurovirulence, ChimeriVax-JE and YF-Vax were compared in groups of 10 monkeys inoculated i.c. and analyzed histopathologically on day 30. Lesion scores in brains and spinal cord were significantly higher for monkeys inoculated with YF-Vax. ChimeriVax-JE meets preclinical safety and efficacy requirements for a human vaccine; it appears safer than yellow fever 17D vaccine but has a similar profile of immunogenicity and protective efficacy.

Proteolytic processing at the C-prM junction in the flavivirus polyprotein involves coordinated cleavages at the cytoplasmic and luminal sides of an internal signal sequence. We have introduced at the COOH terminus of the yellow fever virus (YFV) prM signal sequence amino acid substitutions (VPQAQA mutation) which uncoupled efficient signal peptidase cleavage of the prM protein from its dependence on prior cleavage in the cytoplasm of the C protein mediated by the viral NS2B-3 protease. Infectivity assays with full-length YFV RNA transcripts showed that the VPQAQA mutation, which enhanced signal peptidase cleavage in vitro, was lethal for infectious virus production. Revertants or second-site mutants were recovered from cells transfected with VPQAQA RNA. Analysis of these viruses revealed that single amino acid substitutions in different domains of the prM signal sequence could restore viability. These variants had growth properties in vertebrate cells which differed only slightly from those of the parent virus, despite efficient signal peptidase cleavage of prM in cell-free expression assays. However, the neurovirulence in mice of the VPQAQA variants was significantly attenuated. This study demonstrates that substitutions in the prM signal sequence which disrupt coordinated cleavages at the C-prM junction can impinge on the biological properties of the mutant viruses. Factors other than the rate of production of prM are vitally controlled by regulated cleavages at this site.

Monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) have been prepared against vaccine and wild-type strains of yellow fever (YF) virus, and envelope protein epitopes specific for vaccine (MAbs H5 and H6) and wild-type (MAbs S17, S18, S24, and S56) strains of YF virus have been identified. Wild-type YF virus FVV, Dakar 1279, and B4.1 were each given six passages in HeLa cells. FVV and B4.1 were attenuated for newborn mice following passage in HeLa cells, whereas Dakar 1279 was not. Examination of the envelope proteins of the viruses with 87 MAbs showed that attenuated viruses gained only the vaccine epitope recognized by MAb H5 and lost wild-type epitopes recognized by MAbs S17, S18, and S24 whereas the nonattenuated Dakar 1279 HeLa p6 virus did not gain the vaccine epitope, retained the wild-type epitopes, and showed no other physical epitope alterations. MAb neutralization-resistant (MAbr) escape variants generated by using wild-type-specific MAbs S18 and S24 were found to lose the epitopes recognized by MAbs S18 and S24 and to acquire the epitope recognized by vaccine-specific MAb H5. In addition, the MAbr variants became attenuated for mice. Thus, the data presented in this paper indicate that acquisition of vaccine epitopes and loss of wild-type epitopes on the envelope protein are directly involved in the attenuation process of YF virus and suggest that the envelope protein is one of the genes encoding determinants of YF virus pathogenicity.