Abstract
The African swine fever (ASF) pandemic is currently affecting pigs throughout Eurasia, resulting in significant swine production losses. The causative agent, ASF virus (ASFV), is a large, structurally complex virus with a genome encoding more than 160 genes. The function of most of those genes remains unknown. Here, we presented the previously uncharacterized ASFV gene MGF360-1L, the first gene in the genome. The kinetic studies of virus RNA transcription demonstrated that the MGF360-1L gene was transcribed as a late virus protein. The essentiality of MGF360-1L to virus replication was evaluated by developing a recombinant ASFV lacking the gene (ASFV-G-ΔMGF360-1L). In primary swine macrophage cell cultures, ASFV-G-ΔMGF360-1L showed similar replication kinetics as the parental highly virulent field isolate Georgia2007 (ASFV-G). Domestic pigs experimentally infected with ASFV-G-ΔMGF360-1L presented with a clinical disease indistinguishable from that caused by ASFV-G, demonstrating that MGF360-1L was not involved in virulence in swine, the natural host of ASFV.
Highlights
African swine fever (ASF) is a disease of domestic and wild swine that produces a spectrum of disease, from sub-clinical to highly lethal, depending on the acting virus strain [1]
We studied the role of the previously uncharacterized ASF virus (ASFV) gene multigene family 360 (MGF360)-1L, the first gene encoded in the genome of ASFV Georgia (ASFV-G)
MGF360-1L Gene is Conserved in Most ASFV Isolates
Summary
African swine fever (ASF) is a disease of domestic and wild swine that produces a spectrum of disease, from sub-clinical to highly lethal, depending on the acting virus strain [1]. These experimental vaccines are recombinant live attenuated viruses derived from the virus isolate that initiated the outbreak in the Republic of Georgia in 2007. Understanding the role of individual genes in virus virulence is a critical step in the development of novel ASF vaccines. It has been shown that the deletion of some of the MGF360 genes along with others of the MGF505 gene family on the left arm of the genome produces no attenuation of highly virulent isolate Georgia 2010 [11,21]. The experimental infection of domestic pigs with ASFV-G-∆MGF360-1L demonstrated that MGF360-1L was not essential for virus virulence
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