Plum Island Animal Disease Center, Agricultural Research Service, United States Department of Agriculture, Greenport, NY 11944, USA.
Department of Pathobiology and Population Medicine, Mississippi State University, Starkville, MS 39762, USA.
Viruses. 2022 Jun 28;14(7):1409. doi: 10.3390/v14071409.
African swine fever (ASF) is a frequently lethal disease of domestic and wild swine currently producing a pandemic affecting pig production in Eurasia. The causative agent, ASF virus (ASFV) is a structurally complex virus with a large genome harboring over 150 genes. One of them, , encodes for a protein belonging to the dUTPase family. The fine structure of the purified protein has been recently analyzed and its dUTPase activity tested. In addition, it has been reported that a BA71 mutant virus, adapted to growth in Vero cells, lacking the gene presented a drastic decreased replication in swine macrophages, its natural target cell. Herein, we report the development of a recombinant virus, ASFV-G-∆E165R, harboring the deletion of the gene from the genome of the highly virulent field isolate ASFV Georgia 2010 (ASFV-G). Interestingly, ASFV-G-∆E165R replicates in primary swine macrophage cultures as efficiently as the parental virus ASFV-G. In addition, ASFV-G-∆E165R also replicates in experimentally inoculated domestic pigs with equal efficacy as ASFV-G and produced a lethal disease almost indistinguishable from that induced by the parental virus. Therefore, results presented here clearly demonstrated that gene is not essential or important for ASFV replication in swine macrophages nor disease production in domestic pigs.
非洲猪瘟（ASF）是一种常见的致命性疾病，目前正在欧亚大陆流行，影响着家猪和野猪的生产。病原体是 ASF 病毒（ASFV），它是一种结构复杂的病毒，基因组庞大，拥有超过 150 个基因。其中一个基因 编码一种属于 dUTPase 家族的蛋白质。最近已经分析了纯化蛋白的精细结构，并测试了其 dUTPase 活性。此外，据报道，一种适应在 Vero 细胞中生长的 BA71 突变病毒，缺失了 基因，在猪巨噬细胞（其天然靶细胞）中的复制能力急剧下降。在此，我们报告了一种重组病毒 ASFV-G-∆E165R 的开发，该病毒从高度致命的田间分离株 ASFV Georgia 2010（ASFV-G）的基因组中缺失了 基因。有趣的是，ASFV-G-∆E165R 在原代猪巨噬细胞培养物中的复制效率与亲本病毒 ASFV-G 一样高。此外，ASFV-G-∆E165R 也在实验接种的家猪中复制，与 ASFV-G 的效果相同，并产生了几乎与亲本病毒相同的致死性疾病。因此，这里的结果清楚地表明， 基因对于 ASFV 在猪巨噬细胞中的复制或在家猪中引起疾病并非必需或重要。
