Open AccessDiscrimination of Mumps Virus Small Hydrophobic Gene Deletion Effects from Gene Translation Effects on Virus Virulence
Author(s) -
Tahir Malik,
Candie Wolbert Shegogue,
Kellie Werner,
Laurie Ngo,
Christian Sauder,
Cheryl Zhang,
W. Paul Duprex,
Steven A. Rubin
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
journal of virology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.617
H-Index - 292
eISSN - 1070-6321
pISSN - 0022-538X
DOI - 10.1128/jvi.02686-10
Subject(s) - biology , virulence , virology , gene , virus , mumps virus , translation (biology) , genetics , messenger rna
Deletion of the small hydrophobic (SH) protein of certain paramyxoviruses has been found to result in attenuation, suggesting that the SH protein is a virulence factor. To investigate the role of the mumps virus (MuV) SH protein in virulence, multiple stop codons were introduced into the open reading frame (ORF) of a MuV molecular clone (r88-1961SHstop ), preserving genome structure but precluding production of the SH protein. No differences in neurovirulence were seen between the wild-type and the SHstop viruses. In contrast, upon deletion of the SH gene, significant neuroattenuation was observed. These data indicate that the MuV SH protein is not a neurovirulence factor and highlight the importance of distinguishing gene deletion effects from protein-specific effects.