📄 A severe acute respiratory syndrome-associated coronavirus-specific protein enhances virulence of an attenuated murine coronavirus

Most animal species that can be infected with the severe acute respiratory syndrome-associated coronavirus (SARS-CoV) do not reproducibly develop clinical disease, hindering studies of pathogenesis. To develop an alternative system for the study of SARS-CoV, we introduced individual SARS-CoV genes (open reading frames [ORFs]) into the genome of an attenuated murine coronavirus. One protein, the product of SARS-CoV ORF6, converted a sublethal infection to a uniformly lethal encephalitis and enhanced virus growth in tissue culture cells, indicating that SARS-CoV proteins function in the context of a heterologous coronavirus infection. Furthermore, these results suggest that the attenuated murine coronavirus lacks a virulence gene residing in SARS-CoV. Recombinant murine coronaviruses cause a reproducible and well-characterized clinical disease, offer virtually no risk to laboratory personnel, and should be useful for elucidating the role of SARS-CoV nonstructural proteins in viral replication and pathogenesis. Copyright © 2005, American Society for Microbiology.

keywords 🔗 severe acute (1373) 🔗 reading frames (100) 🔗 tissue culture (67) 🔗 reading frame (222) 🔗 nonstructural proteins (57) 🔗 respiratory syndrome-associated (90) 🔗 coronavirus infection (270) 🔗 structural proteins (197) 🔗 murine coronavirus (140) 🔗 respiratory syndrome (2004) 🔗 results suggest (206) 🔗 acute respiratory (1734) 🔗 syndrome-associated coronavirus (88) 🔗 open reading (215) 🔗 viral replication (258)

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