Department of Virology, Institute of Tropical Medicine, Nagasaki University, 1-12-4 Sakamoto, Nagasaki 852-8523, Japan.
Leading Graduate School Program, Nagasaki University, Nagasaki 852-8523, Japan.
Viruses. 2018 Feb 3;10(2):62. doi: 10.3390/v10020062.
For the development of effective treatment strategies for Japanese encephalitis (JE), it is important to identify the viral factors causing severe disease during JE virus (JEV) infection. In this study, we assessed whether amino acid substitutions are critical factors for higher mortality of JaTH160 compared with JaOArS982 in mice using the technique of infectious cDNA clones. We raised the possibility that two amino acids of C and NS3 of JaTH160 may contribute to increased mortality in mice. However, simultaneous substitutions of these amino acids did not significantly increase the virulence of JaOArS982, suggesting that high mortality due to JaTH160 viral infection cannot be simply attributed to the specific amino acids. Multiple and complex, but not simple, mechanisms may induce the high mortality of JaTH160 infection in mice.
为了开发针对日本脑炎（JE）的有效治疗策略，确定 JEV 感染期间导致严重疾病的病毒因素非常重要。在这项研究中，我们使用传染性 cDNA 克隆技术评估了氨基酸取代是否是 JaTH160 导致比 JaOArS982 更高死亡率的关键因素。我们提出了 JaTH160 的 C 位和 NS3 位的两个氨基酸可能导致小鼠死亡率增加的可能性。然而，这些氨基酸的同时取代并没有显著增加 JaOArS982 的毒力，这表明 JaTH160 病毒感染导致的高死亡率不能简单归因于特定的氨基酸。可能存在多种复杂而非简单的机制导致 JaTH160 感染在小鼠中导致高死亡率。
