Development of Stable Rotavirus Reporter Expression Systems

Development of reporter RVs has been hampered by the lack of comprehensive reverse genetics systems. Recently, we developed a plasmid-based reverse genetics system that enables generation of reporter RVs expressing NLuc luciferase. The prototype reporter RV had some disadvantages (i.e., the transgene was unstable and was expressed as a fusion protein with a partial NSP1 peptide); however, the improved reporter RV overcomes these problems through modification of the untranslated region of the reporter-NSP1 chimeric gene. This strategy for generating stable reporter RVs could be expanded to diverse transgenes and be used to develop RV transduction vectors. Also, the data improve our understanding of the importance of 5′- and 3′-terminal sequences in terms of genome replication, assembly, and packaging.