Černý Jiří, Selinger Martin, Palus Martin, Vavrušková Zuzana, Tykalová Hana, Bell-Sakyi Lesley, Štěrba Ján, Grubhoffer Libor, Růžek Daniel
Institute of Parasitology, Biology Centre of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Branišovská 31, 370 05, České Budějovice, Czech Republic.
Faculty of Science, University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice, Branišovská 31, 370 05, České Budějovice, Czech Republic.
Virus Genes. 2016 Jun;52(3):309-16. doi: 10.1007/s11262-015-1273-y. Epub 2016 Feb 29.
A short upstream open reading frame (uORF) was recently identified in the 5' untranslated region of some tick-borne encephalitis virus (TBEV) strains. However, it is not known if the peptide encoded by TBEV uORF (TuORF) is expressed in infected cells. Here we show that TuORF forms three phylogenetically separated clades which are typical of European, Siberian, and Far-Eastern TBEV subtypes. Analysis of selection pressure acting on the TuORF area showed that it is under positive selection pressure. Theoretically, TuORF may code for a short hydrophobic peptide embedded in a biological membrane. However, expression of TuORF was detectable neither by immunoblotting in tick and mammalian cell lines infected with TBEV nor by immunofluorescence in TBEV-infected mammalian cell lines. These results support the idea that TuORF is not expressed in TBEV-infected cell or expressed in undetectably low concentrations. Therefore we can assume that TuORF has either minor or no biological role in the TBEV life cycle.
最近在一些蜱传脑炎病毒（TBEV）毒株的5'非翻译区发现了一个短的上游开放阅读框（uORF）。然而，尚不清楚TBEV uORF（TuORF）编码的肽是否在受感染细胞中表达。在此我们表明，TuORF形成了三个系统发育上分离的进化枝，这是欧洲、西伯利亚和远东TBEV亚型的典型特征。对作用于TuORF区域的选择压力分析表明，它处于正选择压力之下。理论上，TuORF可能编码一种嵌入生物膜的短疏水肽。然而，无论是在感染TBEV的蜱和哺乳动物细胞系中通过免疫印迹法，还是在感染TBEV的哺乳动物细胞系中通过免疫荧光法，均未检测到TuORF的表达。这些结果支持了TuORF在TBEV感染细胞中不表达或以低到无法检测的浓度表达的观点。因此我们可以假设TuORF在TBEV生命周期中要么具有次要作用，要么没有生物学作用。
