Defective interfering particles in monolayer-propagated Newcastle disease virus

Virus-like Particles: Measures and Biological Functions

Virus-like particles resemble infectious virus particles in size, shape, and molecular composition; however, they fail to productively infect host cells. Historically, the presence of virus-like particles has been inferred from total particle counts by microscopy, and infectious particle counts or plaque-forming-units (PFUs) by plaque assay; the resulting ratio of particles-to-PFUs is often greater than one, easily 10 or 100, indicating that most particles are non-infectious. Despite their inability to hijack cells for their reproduction, virus-like particles and the defective genomes they carry can exhibit a broad range of behaviors: interference with normal virus growth during co-infections, cell killing, and activation or inhibition of innate immune signaling. In addition, some virus-like particles become productive as their multiplicities of infection increase, a sign of cooperation between particles. Here, we review established and emerging methods to count virus-like particles and characterize their biological functions. We take a critical look at evidence for defective interfering virus genomes in natural and clinical isolates, and we review their potential as antiviral therapeutics. In short, we highlight an urgent need to better understand how virus-like genomes and particles interact with intact functional viruses during co-infection of their hosts, and their impacts on the transmission, severity, and persistence of virus-associated diseases.

The Expression of Hemagglutinin by a Recombinant Newcastle Disease Virus Causes Structural Changes and Alters Innate Immune Sensing

Recombinant Newcastle disease viruses (rNDV) have been used as bivalent vectors for vaccination against multiple economically important avian pathogens. NDV-vectored vaccines expressing the immunogenic H5 hemagglutinin (rNDV-H5) are considered attractive candidates to protect poultry from both highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) and Newcastle disease (ND). However, the impact of the insertion of a recombinant protein, such as H5, on the biological characteristics of the parental NDV strain has been little investigated to date. The present study compared a rNDV-H5 vaccine and its parental NDV LaSota strain in terms of their structural and functional characteristics, as well as their recognition by the innate immune sensors. Structural analysis of the rNDV-H5 demonstrated a decreased number of fusion (F) and a higher number of hemagglutinin-neuraminidase (HN) glycoproteins compared to NDV LaSota. These structural differences were accompanied by increased hemagglutinating and neuraminidase activities of rNDV-H5. During in vitro rNDV-H5 infection, increased mRNA expression of TLR3, TLR7, MDA5, and LGP2 was observed, suggesting that the recombinant virus is recognized differently by sensors of innate immunity when compared with the parental NDV LaSota. Given the growing interest in using NDV as a vector against human and animal diseases, these data highlight the importance of thoroughly understanding the recombinant vaccines’ structural organization, functional characteristics, and elicited immune responses.

Cleavage site of Newcastle disease virus determines viral fitness in persistent infection cells

Newcastle disease, caused by infection with virulent strains of Newcastle disease virus (NDV), poses a risk for the poultry industry. The virulence of NDV is mainly determined by the cleavage site of F protein. Lentogenic NDV can become velogenic after passages in SPF chicken brain and air sac based on some strains isolated from water birds, because the proportion of virulent-related strains gradually increases. In contrast, this proportion remains unchanged if NDV is passaged via 10-day-old SPF chicken embryos. This information suggests that environmental conditions rather than mutation affect NDV fitness in quasispecies. However, it is unknown how the environment selects virulent-related strains from a viral population. In this study, velogenic and lentogenic NDV marked by green or red fluorescence were used to establish persistent infection (PI) in BHK-21 cells. Monitoring viruses by different methods, we found that, without competition, persistently infected cells harbored lentogenic and velogenic NDV strains similarly in terms of viral release, viral spread and the period of persistent viral infection. In contrast, under competitive co-infection, velogenic NDV became dominant in quasispecies from the fifth passage of PI cells, which resulted in the progressive disappearance of the lentogenic NDV strain. This domination was concomitant with a short-term reduction in the superinfection exclusion and supernatant interference in PI cells resulting in a velogenic virus rebound. We concluded that virulent-related F protein cleavage site facilitates the spread and replication of NDV in conditions under which cells do not secret trypsin-like proteases and do not inhibit free virus infection, resulting in a gradual increase in virulent strains in quasispecies with the number of passages.

Assembly of enveloped respiratory syncytial virus particles within the cytoplasm of infected Vero cells

Electron microscopic examination of syncytia induced by a bovine respiratory syncytial virus strain in Vero cell cultures revealed the presence in the cytoplasm of assembled enveloped virus particles within inclusions of variable sizes. Moreover, budding virus particles were shown occasionally in the intracytoplasmic vesicles. These particles were filamentous in form, about 80-120 nm in diameter, variable in length, containing 12 nm diameter nucleocapsids, and looked like the extracellular particles budding at the plasma membranes. This is the first report on assembly of intracellular virus particles in cells infected by a member of the family Paramyxoviridae. Vero cell-dependent variations appear to be the factor leading to the defect in the late virus replication cycle.

Defective interfering particles of human parainfluenza virus 3

A cyclic pattern of virus production was observed when human parainfluenza virus 3 (HPIV3) was serially passaged nine times in LLC-MK2 cells. Viruses produced from serial passages 8 and 9 interfered with the replication of standard HPIV3. Three subgenomic RNA species (DI-1, DI-2, and DI-3) and virus genomic RNA were detected in the progeny virions produced from cells mixedly infected with standard virus and virus from either serial passages 5 or 8. Northern blot analysis with probes representing all six HPIV3 structural protein genes revealed that DI-1 and DI-2 RNAs contain sequences from the 5' end of the standard virus genome. DI-1 RNA contains L, HN, and F specific sequences, while DI-2 RNA contains only L and HN sequences. DI-3 RNA did not hybridize with any of the probes used. The possibility that DI-3 RNA contains sequences from the 5' end of the standard virus genome is discussed. These results demonstrate that 5' defective interfering particles are generated during serial passage of HPIV3.

Suppression of vesicular stomatitis virus defective intefering particle generation by a function(s) associated with human chromosome 16

Human-mouse somatic cell hybrids were made between adenine phosphoribosyltransferase-deficient mouse L cells and a strain of human primary fibroblasts and selected in medium containing alanosine and adenine (J. A. Tischfield and F. H. Ruddle, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 71:45-49, 1974). These hybrids were tested for the generation of defective interfering (DI) particles of vesicular stomatitis virus to determine whether or not a host gene controls the induction of DI particles. None of the seven independently arising hybrid clones tested generated detectable DI particles during 13 successive undiluted passages. In addition, the parental human cells also failed to generate DI particles. In contrast, the parental mouse cells generated a detectable level of DI particles during continuous passage. Thus, failure to generate DI particles appears to act in a dominant fashion in these hybrids. Human chromosome 16 and adenine phosphoribosyltransferase were present, as a direct consequence of the selection system, in all of the hybrid clones that failed to generate DI particles. It was the only human chromosome observed in the cells of every hybrid clone. This was verified by both isozyme and karyotype analyses. After hybrids were back-selected (with 2,6-diaminopurine) for loss of human adenine phosphoribosyltransferase and chromosome 16, they gained the ability to generate DI particles. Replication of DI particles already present in virus stocks, however, was normal in all of the hybrid clones and the parental human cells. This suggests that the induction, but not the replication, of DI particles is affected by the human genome and that a factor on human chromosome 16 seems to selectively suppress the mouse cell's ability to generate DI particles in the hybrids. These results support the idea that the induction of DI particles is controlled in part by host cell function(s), as suggested previously (C. Y. Kang and R. Allen, J. Virol. 25:202-206, 1978).

Isolation and characterization of defective interfering particle of Newcastle disease virus

Newcastle disease virus grown in embryonated eggs was separated and purified by sucrose density gradient centrifugation into two distinct type of particles, B and T, the former being normal virus particles with high activities of hemagglutination, hemolysis, neuraminidase and infectivity, the latter being non-infectious virus particles with low activities of hemolysis and neuraminidase but high hemagglutination activity. B and T particles were shown to share a common antigen by immunodiffusion test. T particles were deficient in viral RNA, since they contained only 13s RNA in a small amount, whereas B particles possessed a large amount of 57s RNA and a small amount of 13s RNA. T particles interfered with the multiplication of normal Newcastle disease virus in primary cultures of chick embryo cells.