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Characterization of a Novel Viral Interleukin 8 (vIL-8) Splice Variant Encoded by Marek’s Disease Virus

Marek’s disease virus (MDV) is a highly cell-associated oncogenic alphaherpesvirus that causes lymphomas in various organs in chickens. Like other herpesviruses, MDV has a large and complex double-stranded DNA genome. A number of viral transcripts are generated by alternative splicing, a process tha...

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Autores principales: You, Yu, Hagag, Ibrahim T., Kheimar, Ahmed, Bertzbach, Luca D., Kaufer, Benedikt B.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8303658/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34361910
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms9071475
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author You, Yu
Hagag, Ibrahim T.
Kheimar, Ahmed
Bertzbach, Luca D.
Kaufer, Benedikt B.
author_facet You, Yu
Hagag, Ibrahim T.
Kheimar, Ahmed
Bertzbach, Luca D.
Kaufer, Benedikt B.
author_sort You, Yu
collection PubMed
description Marek’s disease virus (MDV) is a highly cell-associated oncogenic alphaherpesvirus that causes lymphomas in various organs in chickens. Like other herpesviruses, MDV has a large and complex double-stranded DNA genome. A number of viral transcripts are generated by alternative splicing, a process that drastically extends the coding capacity of the MDV genome. One of the spliced genes encoded by MDV is the viral interleukin 8 (vIL-8), a CXC chemokine that facilitates the recruitment of MDV target cells and thereby plays an important role in MDV pathogenesis and tumorigenesis. We recently identified a novel vIL-8 exon (vIL-8-E3′) by RNA-seq; however, it remained elusive whether the protein containing the vIL-8-E3′ is expressed and what role it may play in MDV replication and/or pathogenesis. To address these questions, we first generated recombinant MDV harboring a tag that allows identification of the spliced vIL-8-E3′ protein, revealing that it is indeed expressed. We subsequently generated knockout viruses and could demonstrate that the vIL-8-E3′ protein is dispensable for MDV replication as well as secretion of the functional vIL-8 chemokine. Finally, infection of chickens with this vIL-8-E3′ knockout virus revealed that the protein is not important for MDV replication and pathogenesis in vivo. Taken together, our study provides novel insights into the splice forms of the CXC chemokine of this highly oncogenic alphaherpesvirus.
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spelling pubmed-83036582021-07-25 Characterization of a Novel Viral Interleukin 8 (vIL-8) Splice Variant Encoded by Marek’s Disease Virus You, Yu Hagag, Ibrahim T. Kheimar, Ahmed Bertzbach, Luca D. Kaufer, Benedikt B. Microorganisms Article Marek’s disease virus (MDV) is a highly cell-associated oncogenic alphaherpesvirus that causes lymphomas in various organs in chickens. Like other herpesviruses, MDV has a large and complex double-stranded DNA genome. A number of viral transcripts are generated by alternative splicing, a process that drastically extends the coding capacity of the MDV genome. One of the spliced genes encoded by MDV is the viral interleukin 8 (vIL-8), a CXC chemokine that facilitates the recruitment of MDV target cells and thereby plays an important role in MDV pathogenesis and tumorigenesis. We recently identified a novel vIL-8 exon (vIL-8-E3′) by RNA-seq; however, it remained elusive whether the protein containing the vIL-8-E3′ is expressed and what role it may play in MDV replication and/or pathogenesis. To address these questions, we first generated recombinant MDV harboring a tag that allows identification of the spliced vIL-8-E3′ protein, revealing that it is indeed expressed. We subsequently generated knockout viruses and could demonstrate that the vIL-8-E3′ protein is dispensable for MDV replication as well as secretion of the functional vIL-8 chemokine. Finally, infection of chickens with this vIL-8-E3′ knockout virus revealed that the protein is not important for MDV replication and pathogenesis in vivo. Taken together, our study provides novel insights into the splice forms of the CXC chemokine of this highly oncogenic alphaherpesvirus. MDPI 2021-07-09 /pmc/articles/PMC8303658/ /pubmed/34361910 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms9071475 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
You, Yu
Hagag, Ibrahim T.
Kheimar, Ahmed
Bertzbach, Luca D.
Kaufer, Benedikt B.
Characterization of a Novel Viral Interleukin 8 (vIL-8) Splice Variant Encoded by Marek’s Disease Virus
title Characterization of a Novel Viral Interleukin 8 (vIL-8) Splice Variant Encoded by Marek’s Disease Virus
title_full Characterization of a Novel Viral Interleukin 8 (vIL-8) Splice Variant Encoded by Marek’s Disease Virus
title_fullStr Characterization of a Novel Viral Interleukin 8 (vIL-8) Splice Variant Encoded by Marek’s Disease Virus
title_full_unstemmed Characterization of a Novel Viral Interleukin 8 (vIL-8) Splice Variant Encoded by Marek’s Disease Virus
title_short Characterization of a Novel Viral Interleukin 8 (vIL-8) Splice Variant Encoded by Marek’s Disease Virus
title_sort characterization of a novel viral interleukin 8 (vil-8) splice variant encoded by marek’s disease virus
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8303658/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34361910
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms9071475
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