Institute for Clinical & Molecular Virology, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg, 91054 Erlangen, Germany.
Group of Antiviral Defense Mechanisms, Institute of Molecular Biology of the National Academy of Sciences, 0014, Yerevan, Armenia.
Epigenomics. 2018 Mar;10(3):289-299. doi: 10.2217/epi-2017-0131. Epub 2018 Jan 12.
Sequence-specific CpG methylation of eukaryotic promoters is an important epigenetic signal for long-term gene silencing. We have now studied the methylation status of African swine fever virus (ASFV) DNA at various times after infection of Vero cells in culture.
METHODS & RESULTS: ASFV DNA was detectable throughout the infection cycle and was found unmethylated in productively infected Vero cells as documented by bisulfite sequencing of 13 viral DNA segments.
ASFV DNA does not become de novo methylated in the course of infection in selected segments spread across the entire genome. Thus DNA methylation does not interfere with ASFV genome transcription. Lack of de novo methylation has previously been observed for free intracellular viral DNA in cells permissively infected with human adenoviruses, with human papillomaviruses and others.
真核启动子的序列特异性 CpG 甲基化是长期基因沉默的一个重要表观遗传信号。我们现在已经研究了在非洲猪瘟病毒（ASFV）感染培养的 Vero 细胞后的不同时间内，ASFV DNA 的甲基化状态。
在整个感染周期内均可检测到 ASFV DNA，并且通过对 13 个病毒 DNA 片段的亚硫酸氢盐测序，在产毒感染的 Vero 细胞中发现其未甲基化。
在所选择的跨整个基因组分布的片段中，在感染过程中 ASFV DNA 不会新出现甲基化。因此，DNA 甲基化不会干扰 ASFV 基因组的转录。以前在允许人类腺病毒、人乳头瘤病毒等感染的细胞中，对游离的细胞内病毒 DNA 也观察到缺乏新的甲基化。
