Open AccessAssessment of the function and intergenus-compatibility of Ebola and Lloviu virus proteins
Author(s) -
Lennart Kämper,
Lukas Zierke,
Marie Luisa Schmidt,
Andreas Müller,
Lisa Wendt,
Janine Brandt,
Eric Hartmann,
Stefanie Braun,
Julia Holzerland,
Allison Groseth,
Thomas Hoenen
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
journal of general virology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.55
H-Index - 167
eISSN - 1465-2099
pISSN - 0022-1317
DOI - 10.1099/jgv.0.001261
Subject(s) - biology , ebola virus , vp40 , virology , virus , marburg virus , viral entry , viral life cycle , genome , filoviridae , dna virus , viral replication , ebolavirus , genetics , computational biology , gene , viral disease , paramyxoviridae
Sequences for Lloviu virus (LLOV), a putative novel filovirus, were first identified in Miniopterus schreibersii bats in Spain following a massive bat die-off in 2002, and also recently found in bats in Hungary. However, until now it is unclear if these sequences correspond to a fully functional, infectious virus, and whether it will show a pathogenic phenotype like African filoviruses, such as ebola- and marburgviruses, or be apathogenic for humans, like the Asian filovirus Reston virus. Since no infectious virus has been recovered, the only opportunity to study infectious LLOV is to use a reverse genetics-based full-length clone system to de novo generate LLOV. As a first step in this process, and to investigate whether the identified sequences indeed correspond to functional viral proteins, we have developed life cycle modelling systems for LLOV, which allow us to study genome replication and transcription as well as entry of this virus. We show that all LLOV proteins fulfill their canonical role in the virus life cycle as expected based on the well-studied related filovirus Ebola virus. Further, we have analysed the intergenus-compatibility of proteins that have to act in concert to facilitate the virus life cycle. We show that some but not all proteins from LLOV and Ebola virus are compatible with each other, emphasizing the close relationship of these viruses, and informing future studies of filovirus biology with respect to the generation of genus-chimeric proteins in order to probe virus protein-protein interactions on a functional level.