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Establishment of a Plasmid-Based Reverse Genetics System for the Cell Culture-Adapted Hepatitis E Virus Genotype 3c Strain 47832c

Authors :
Christine Bächlein
Alexander Falkenhagen
Ashish K. Gadicherla
Johannes Scholz
Simon H. Tausch
Reimar Johne
Source :
Pathogens, Vol 9, Iss 3, p 157 (2020), Pathogens, Volume 9, Issue 3
Publication Year :
2020
Publisher :
MDPI AG, 2020.

Abstract

The hepatitis E virus (HEV) causes acute and chronic hepatitis in humans. Investigation of HEV replication is hampered by the lack of broadly applicable, efficient cell culture systems and tools for site-directed mutagenesis of HEV. The cell culture-adapted genotype 3c strain 47832c, which represents a typical genotype predominantly detected in Europe, has previously been used for several basic and applied research studies. Here, a plasmid-based reverse genetics system was developed for this strain, which efficiently rescued the infectious virus without the need for in vitro RNA transcription. The cotransfection of T7 RNA polymerase-expressing BSR/T7 cells with one plasmid encoding the full-length viral genome and two helper plasmids encoding vaccinia virus capping enzymes resulted in the production of infectious HEV, which could be serially passaged on A549/D3 cells. The parental and recombinant virus exhibited similar replication kinetics. A single point mutation creating an additional restriction enzyme site could be successfully introduced into the virus genome of progeny virus, indicating that the system is suitable for site-directed mutagenesis. This system is the first plasmid-based HEV reverse genetics system, as well as the first reverse genetics system for HEV genotype 3c, and should therefore be of broad use for basic and applied HEV research.

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
20760817
Volume :
9
Issue :
3
Database :
OpenAIRE
Journal :
Pathogens
Accession number :
edsair.doi.dedup.....3e6fc8bb05fb96a1e16db40f4e67f1e3