Molecular differences between two Jeryl Lynn mumps virus vaccine component strains, JL5 and JL2

The Jeryl Lynn (JL) vaccine against mumps virus (MuV) contains two components, MuV(JL5) and MuV(JL2), which differ by over 400 nt. Due to the occurrence of bias in the direction of mutation, these differences and those found in nucleotide sequences of different isolates of the minor component in the vaccine (MuV(JL2)) might be due to the effect of ADAR-like deaminases on MuV grown in tissue-cultured cells. A molecular clone of MuV(JL2) (pMuV(JL2)) and MuV(JL2)-specific helper plasmids were constructed in order to investigate molecular interactions between MuV(JL5) and MuV(JL2), to augment the existing molecular clone of MuV(JL5) (pMuV(JL5)) and MuV(JL5)-specific helper plasmids. Genome and mRNA termini of MuV(JL2) were characterized, and an unusual oligo-G insertion transcriptional editing event was detected near the F mRNA polyadenylation site of MuV(JL2), but not of MuV(JL5). Genes encoding glycoproteins of rMuV(JL2) and rMuV(JL5) have been exchanged to characterize the oligo-G insertion, which associated with the specific sequence of the F gene of MuV(JL2) and not with any other genes or the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase of strain MuV(JL2). The results indicate that a single G-to-A sequence change obliterates the co-transcriptional editing of the F mRNA and that this oligo-G insertion does not affect the growth of the virus.