Zaire ebolavirus causes large outbreaks of severe and usually fatal hemorrhagic disease in humans for which there is no effective treatment or cure. To facilitate examination of early critical events in viral pathogenesis and to identify antiviral compounds, a recombinant Zaire ebolavirus was engineered to express a foreign protein, eGFP, to provide a rapid and sensitive means to monitor virus replication in infected cells. This genetically engineered virus represents the first insertion of a foreign gene into ebolavirus. We show that Ebola-eGFP virus (EboZ-eGFP) infects known early targets of human infections and serves as an ideal model to screen antiviral compounds in less time than any previously published assay.
The VP35 protein of Zaire Ebola virus is an essential component of the viral RNA polymerase complex and also functions to antagonize the cellular type I interferon (IFN) response by blocking activation of the transcription factor IRF-3. We previously mapped the IRF-3 inhibitory domain within the C terminus of VP35. In the present study, we show that mutations that disrupt the IRF-3 inhibitory function of VP35 do not disrupt viral transcription/replication, suggesting that the two functions of VP35 are separable. Second, using reverse genetics, we successfully recovered recombinant Ebola viruses containing mutations within the IRF-3 inhibitory domain. Importantly, we show that the recombinant viruses were attenuated for growth in cell culture and that they activated IRF-3 and IRF-3-inducible gene expression at levels higher than that for Ebola virus containing wild-type VP35. In the context of Ebola virus pathogenesis, VP35 may function to limit early IFN- production and other antiviral signals generated from cells at the primary site of infection, thereby slowing down the host's ability to curb virus replication and induce adaptive immunity.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.