Abstract

There is currently a pandemic of pseudorabies virus (PRV) variant strains in China. Despite extensive research on PRV variant strains in the past two years, few studies have investigated PRV pathogenicity-related genes. To determine which gene(s) is/are linked to PRV virulence, ten putative virulence genes were knocked out using clustered regularly interspaced palindromic repeats (CRISPR)/Cas9 technology. The pathogenicity of these mutants was evaluated in a mouse model. Our results demonstrated that of the ten tested genes, the thymidine kinase (TK) and glycoprotein M (gM) knockout mutants displayed significantly reduced virulence. However, mutants of other putative virulence genes, such as glycoprotein E (gE), glycoprotein I (gI), Us2, Us9, Us3, glycoprotein G (gG), glycoprotein N (gN) and early protein 0 (EP0), did not exhibit significantly reduced virulence compared to that of the wild-type PRV. To our knowledge, this study is the first to compare virulence genes from the current pandemic PRV variant strain. This study will provide a valuable reference for scientists to design effective live attenuated vaccines in the future.

Details

Title
Comparison of Pathogenicity-Related Genes in the Current Pseudorabies Virus Outbreak in China
Author
Yan-Dong, Tang 1 ; Ji-Ting, Liu 2 ; Tong-Yun, Wang 1 ; Ming-Xia, Sun 1 ; Zhi-Jun Tian 1 ; Xue-Hui, Cai 1 

 State Key Laboratory of Veterinary Biotechnology, Harbin Veterinary Research Institute of Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Harbin, China 
 State Key Laboratory of Veterinary Biotechnology, Harbin Veterinary Research Institute of Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Harbin, China; College of Animal Science and Technology, Jilin Agriculture University, Changchun, China 
Pages
1-6
Publication year
2017
Publication date
Aug 2017
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
e-ISSN
20452322
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
1957172695
Copyright
© 2017. This work is published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.