Functional importance of dengue virus maturation: infectious properties of immature virions
- 1 December 2008
- journal article
- Published by Microbiology Society in Journal of General Virology
- Vol. 89 (12), 3047-3051
- https://doi.org/10.1099/vir.0.2008/002535-0
Abstract
Prior to the release of flavivirus particles from infected cells, the viral surface protein prM is cleaved to M by the cellular enzyme furin. For dengue virus (DENV), this maturation process appears to be very inefficient since a high proportion of progeny virions contain uncleaved prM. Furthermore, it has been reported that prM-containing DENV particles are infectious. These observations contradict the general assumption that prM processing is required to render virus particles infectious. Therefore, in this study, we reinvestigated the infectious properties of immature DENV virions. DENV particles were produced in furin-deficient LoVo cells. We observed that DENV-infected LoVo cells secrete high numbers of prM-containing particles. Subsequent analysis of the infectious titre revealed that immature particles lack the ability to infect cells, the infectious unit to particle ratio being 10 000-fold reduced compared with that of wild-type virus. Our results indicate that cleavage of prM to M is required for DENV infectivity.This publication has 26 references indexed in Scilit:
- Resuscitating Mutations in a Furin Cleavage-Deficient Mutant of the Flavivirus Tick-Borne Encephalitis VirusJournal of Virology, 2005
- Cleavage of protein prM is necessary for infection of BHK-21 cells by tick-borne encephalitis virus FN1Journal of General Virology, 2003
- Antibodies against prM protein distinguish between previous infection with dengue and Japanese encephalitis viruses.BMC Microbiology, 2002
- Antibodies that block virus attachment to vero cells are a major component of the human neutralizing antibody response against dengue virus type 2Journal of Medical Virology, 1995
- The interactions of the flavivirus envelope proteins: implications for virus entry and releasePublished by Springer Science and Business Media LLC ,1994
- Structural Changes and Functional Control of the Tick-Borne Encephalitis Virus Glycoprotein E by the Heterodimeric Association with Protein prMVirology, 1994
- The Murray Valley encephalitis virus prM protein confers acid resistance to virus particles and alters the expression of epitopes within the R2 domain of E glycoproteinVirology, 1992
- Dengue virus premembrane and membrane proteins elicit a protective immune responseVirology, 1991
- Fusion activity of flaviviruses: comparison of mature and immature (prM-containing) tick-borne encephalitis virionsJournal of General Virology, 1991
- Epitopic Analysis of Antigenic Determinants on the Surface of Dengue-2 Virions Using Monoclonal Antibodies *The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, 1985