An attenuated replication-competent chikungunya virus with a fluorescently tagged envelope.

• Main Authors: Jing Jin (Author), Michael B Sherman (Author), Daniel Chafets (Author), Nuntana Dinglasan (Author), Kai Lu (Author), Tzong-Hae Lee (Author), Lars-Anders Carlson (Author), Marcus O Muench (Author), Graham Simmons (Author)
• Format: Book
• Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS), 2018-07-01T00:00:00Z.
• Subjects: article
• Online Access: Connect to this object online.

Summary

BACKGROUND:Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) is the most common alphavirus infecting humans worldwide, causing acute and chronically debilitating arthralgia at a great economic expense. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS:To facilitate our study of CHIKV, we generated a mCherry tagged replication-competent chimeric virus, CHIKV 37997-mCherry. Single particle cryoEM demonstrated icosahedral organization of the chimeric virus and the display of mCherry proteins on virus surface. CHIKV 37997-mCherry is attenuated in both IFNαR knockout and wild-type mice. Strong anti-CHIKV and anti-mCherry antibody responses were induced in CHIKV 37997-mCherry infected mice. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE:Our work suggests that chimeric alphaviruses displaying foreign antigen can serve as vaccines against both aphaviruses and other pathogens and diseases.

Item Description

1935-2727
1935-2735
10.1371/journal.pntd.0006693