Genetic analysis of murine hepatitis virus non-structural protein 16

MHV-Wüts18 is an RNA-negative, temperature-sensitive mutant of mouse coronavirus, strain murine hepatitis virus (MHV)-A59. We have previously identified the putative causal mutation of MHV-Wüts18 as a C to U transition at codon 2446 in ORF1b, which results in a substitution of proline 12 with serine in non-structural protein 16. Here, we have used a vaccinia virus-based reverse genetic system to produce a recombinant virus, inf-MHV-Wüts18((AGC)) that encodes nsp16 serine 12 with AGC rather than UCU; a difference that facilitates the isolation of second-site revertants. Sequence analysis of nine inf-MHV-Wüts18((AGC)) revertant viruses suggests that their phenotype is most probably due to the intra-molecular substitution of amino acids in nsp16. However, the revertant viruses displayed different plaque sizes and whole genome sequencing of two revertants showed that they were isogenic apart from a mutation in nsp13. These results are discussed in the context of a model of coronavirus MHV nsp16 structure.