The full-length clone of cucumber green mottle mosaic virus and its application as an expression system for Hepatitis B surface antigen

Delivery of progeny virus from the infectious clone of cucumber green mottle mosaic virus and quantification of the viral load in different host plants

Cucumber green mottle mosaic virus (CGMMV, genus Tobamovirus) is a widely occurring tobamovirus in cucurbits. The genome of CGMMV has been used previously for the expression of foreign genes in the plant. High throughput delivery and high viral titer are important requirements of foreign protein expression in plant through virus genome-based vector, in this study, Agrobacterium containing infectious construct of CGMMV was infiltrated through syringe, vacuum and high-speed spray to N. benthamiana, cucumber and bottle gourd leaves. The success rate of systemic infection of CGMMV agro-construct through all three methods was higher (80-100%) in N. benthamiana compared to the cucurbits (40-73.3%). To determine the high-throughput delivery of CGMMV in the plant system, four delivery methods viz. rubbing, syringe infiltration, vacuum infiltration and high-speed spray using the progeny virus derived through CGMMV agro-construct were compared in the three different plant species. Based on the rate of systemic infection and time required to perform delivery by different methods, vacuum infiltration was found most efficient for the high-throughput delivery of CGMMV. The quantification of CGMMV through qPCR revealed that CGMMV load varied considerably in leaf and fruit tissues depending with the time of infection. Immediately after expression of symptoms, a high load of CGMMV (~ 1 µg/100 mg of tissues) was noticed in young leaves of N. benthamiana and cucumber. In bottle gourd leaves, the CGMMV load was far low compared to N. benthamiana and cucumber plants. In the fruit tissues of cucumber and bottle gourd higher virus load was observed in mature fruit but not in immature fruit. The findings of the present study will serve as an important base line information to produce foreign protein through CGMMV genome-vector.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s13205-023-03630-y.

Stable Display of Artificially Long Foreign Antigens on Chimeric Bamboo mosaic virus Particles

Plant viruses can be genetically modified to generate chimeric virus particles (CVPs) carrying heterologous peptides fused on the surface of coat protein (CP) subunits as vaccine candidates. However, some factors may be especially significant in determining the properties of chimeras. In this study, peptides from various sources and of various lengths were inserted into the Bamboo mosaic virus-based (BaMV) vector CP N-terminus to examine the chimeras infecting and accumulating in plants. Interestingly, it was found that the two different strains Foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) VP1 antigens with flexible linker peptides (77 or 82 amino acids) were directly expressed on the BaMV CP, and the chimeric particles self-assembled and continued to express FMDV antigens. The chimeric CP, when directly fused with a large foreign protein (117 amino acids), can self-fold into incomplete virus particles or disks. The physicochemical properties of heterologus peptides N-terminus, complex strand structures of heterologus peptides C-terminus and different flexible linker peptides, can affect the chimera accumulation. Based on these findings, using plant virus-based chimeras to express foreign proteins can increase their length limitations, and engineered plant-made CVP-based vaccines have increasing potential for further development as novel vaccines.

Plant-Based Vaccines: The Way Ahead?

Severe virus outbreaks are occurring more often and spreading faster and further than ever. Preparedness plans based on lessons learned from past epidemics can guide behavioral and pharmacological interventions to contain and treat emergent diseases. Although conventional biologics production systems can meet the pharmaceutical needs of a community at homeostasis, the COVID-19 pandemic has created an abrupt rise in demand for vaccines and therapeutics that highlight the gaps in this supply chain's ability to quickly develop and produce biologics in emergency situations given a short lead time. Considering the projected requirements for COVID-19 vaccines and the necessity for expedited large scale manufacture the capabilities of current biologics production systems should be surveyed to determine their applicability to pandemic preparedness. Plant-based biologics production systems have progressed to a state of commercial viability in the past 30 years with the capacity for production of complex, glycosylated, "mammalian compatible" molecules in a system with comparatively low production costs, high scalability, and production flexibility. Continued research drives the expansion of plant virus-based tools for harnessing the full production capacity from the plant biomass in transient systems. Here, we present an overview of vaccine production systems with a focus on plant-based production systems and their potential role as "first responders" in emergency pandemic situations.

Prediction of putative regulatory elements in the subgenomic promoters of cucumber green mottle mosaic virus and their interactions with the RNA dependent RNA polymerase domain

Characterization of the subgenomic RNA (sgRNA) promoter of many plant viruses is important to understand the expression of downstream genes and also to configure their genome into a suitable virus gene-vector system. Cucumber green mottle mosaic virus (CGMMV, genus Tobamovirus) is one of the RNA viruses, which is extensively being exploited as the suitable gene silencing and protein expression vector. Even though, characters of the sgRNA promoters (SGPs) of CGMMV are yet to be addressed. In the present study, we predicted the SGP for the movement protein (MP) and coat protein (CP) of CGMMV. Further, we identified the key regulatory elements in the SGP regions of MP and CP, and their interactions with the core RNA dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) domain of CGMMV was deciphered. The modeled structure of core RdRp contains two palm (1-41 aa, and 63-109 aa), one finger (42-62 aa) subdomains with three conserved RdRp motifs that played important role in binding to the SGP nucleic acids. RdRp strongly preferred the double helix form of the stem region in the stem and loop (SL) structures, and the internal bulge elements. In MP-SGP, a total of six elements was identified; of them, the affinity of binding to - 26 nt to - 17 nt site (CGCGGAAAAG) was higher through the formation of strong hydrogen bonds with LYS16, TYR17, LYS19, SER20, etc. of the motif A in the palm subdomain of RdRp. Similar strong interactions were noticed in the internal bulge (CAACUUU) located at + 33 to + 39 nt adjacent to the translation start site (TLSS) (+ 1). These could be proposed as the putative core promoter elements in MP-SGP. Likewise, total five elements were predicted within - 114 nt to + 144 nt region of CP-SGP with respect to CP-TLSS. Of them, RdRp preferred to bind at the small hairpin located at - 60 nt to - 43 nt (UUGGAGGUUUAGCCUCCA) in the upstream region, and at the complex duplex structure spanning between + 99 and + 114 nt in the downstream region, thus indicating the distribution of core promoter within - 60 nt to + 114 nt region of CP-SGP with respect to TLSS (+ 1) of the CP; whereas, the - 114 nt to + 144 nt region of CP-SGP might be necessary for the full activity of the CP-SGP. Our in silico prediction certifies the gravity of these nucleotide stretches as the RNA regulatory elements and identifies their potentiality for binding with of palm and finger sub-domain of RdRp. Identification of such elements will be helpful to anticipate the critical length of the SGPs. Our finding will not only be helpful to delineate the SGPs of CGMMV but also their subsequent application in the efficient construction of virus gene-vector for the expression of foreign protein in plant.

Single amino acid substitutions in the coat protein and RNA-dependent RNA polymerase alleviated the virulence of Cucumber green mottle mosaic virus and conferred cross protection against severe infection

Cross protection is a promising alternate to control Cucumber green mottle mosaic virus (CGMMV) which is of increasing economic importance to cucurbit production worldwide. One major factor confronting the application of cross protection to control CGMMV is the scarcity of available mild mutants. The objective of this paper was to screen attenuated mutants of CGMMV and evaluate their potential in cross protection. An infectious cDNA clone of CGMMV, pCGMMV, was obtained by cloning intron-containing CGMMV genome to modified pCambia0390 vector with the Cauliflower mosaic virus 35S promoter. Five pCGMMV-derived mutants were obtained via site-directed mutagenesis and inoculated to Nicotiana benthamiana plants for symptom observation. The attenuated CGMMV mutants were evaluated for their efficiency in cross protection. The intron-containing clone pCGMMV induced similar disease symptoms and accumulated similar titres of virus in N. benthamiana plants as wild-type CGMMV. Mutations of aspartic acid at position 89 in the coat protein to alanine (D89A) or glutamic acid at position 1069 in the ORF1/2 read-through protein, in the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase domain to alanine (E1069A) alleviated the symptoms of pCGMMV in N. benthamiana plants significantly. In cross protection assay, the two mutants pCGMMV-CP-D89A and pCGMMV-RdRp-E1069A could prevent the superinfection of CGMMV, with protection efficiency of 91.7% and 100%, respectively. The intron-containing clone pCGMMV was stable and highly infectious. The D89 in the coat protein and E1069 in the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase played an important role in regulating the virulence of CGMMV. Mutants pCGMMV-CP-D89A and pCGMMV-RdRp-E1069A were of great potential in the control of CGMMV via cross protection.

A cucumber green mottle mosaic virus vector for virus-induced gene silencing in cucurbit plants

BACKGROUND

Cucurbits produce fruits or vegetables that have great dietary importance and economic significance worldwide. The published genomes of at least 11 cucurbit species are boosting gene mining and novel breeding strategies, however genetic transformation in cucurbits is impractical as a tool for gene function validation due to low transformation efficiency. Virus-induced gene silencing (VIGS) is a potential alternative tool. So far, very few ideal VIGS vectors are available for cucurbits.

RESULTS

Here, we describe a new VIGS vector derived from cucumber green mottle mosaic virus (CGMMV), a monopartite virus that infects cucurbits naturally. We show that the CGMMV vector is competent to induce efficient silencing of the phytoene desaturase (PDS) gene in the model plant Nicotiana benthamiana and in cucurbits, including watermelon, melon, cucumber and bottle gourd. Infection with the CGMMV vector harboring PDS sequences of 69-300 bp in length in the form of sense-oriented or hairpin cDNAs resulted in photobleaching phenotypes in N. benthamiana and cucurbits by PDS silencing. Additional results reflect that silencing of the PDS gene could persist for over two months and the silencing effect of CGMMV-based vectors could be passaged.

CONCLUSIONS

These results demonstrate that CGMMV vector could serve as a powerful and easy-to-use tool for characterizing gene function, controlling viral pathogens or even performing resistance breeding in cucurbits. Moreover, this study will possess considerable important reference value for developing different viral vectors.

Development of a cucumber green mottle mosaic virus-based expression vector for the production in cucumber of neutralizing epitopes against a devastating animal virus

Virus-based expression systems have been widely exploited for the production of recombinant proteins in plants during the last thirty years. Advances in technology have boosted scale-up manufacturing of plant-made pharmaceuticals to high levels, via the complementation of transient expression and viral vectors. This combination allows proteins of interest to be produced in plants within a matter of days and thus, is well suited for the development of plant-made vaccines or therapeutics against emerging infectious diseases and potential bioterrorism agents. Several plant-based products are currently in varying stages of clinical development. To investigate the viability of virus-based expression systems for plant-made vaccines against porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV), the most devastating threat to the pork industry in Canada, we cloned the full-length genome of a cucumber green mottle mosaic virus (CGMMV) isolate and developed a CGMMV-based expression vector. We further employed this vector to express the neutralizing epitope (NE) of PRRSV glycoprotein 5 (GP5) in cucumber leaves via agroinfiltration. The coding region of the GP5 NE was inserted downstream of the open reading frame for coat protein (CP) and expressed by a readthrough mechanism. The chimeric virus particles were stable and the expression levels reached as high as 35.84 mg/kg of cucumber leaf fresh weight. This study offers a promising solution to the production of a low cost, versatile and robust vaccine for oral administration against PRRSV through a chimeric virus particle display system.

Exploring Different Mutations at a Single Amino Acid Position of Cucumber green mottle mosaic virus Replicase to Attain Stable Symptom Attenuation

Cucumber green mottle mosaic virus (CGMMV) is a member of the genus Tobamovirus (family Virgaviridae) that causes serious economic losses in cucurbit crops. A possibility for CGMMV control is the use of cross-protection, for which stable attenuated isolates are required. In this study, an infectious clone was constructed for the hn isolate of CGMMV. Unexpectedly, this clone carried a nonconserved mutation involving a single nucleotide change resulting in the replacement of Arg by Cys at residue 284 of the replicase protein; this mutation correlated with delayed symptom induction and RNA accumulation, as shown in time-course experiments. Sequencing of the viral progeny showed that restoration of wild-type symptoms and increased RNA accumulation correlated with reversion of the mutation to the wild-type sequence, a phenomenon that occurred at approximately 7 to 10 days postinoculation. Thus, Arg284 seems to be crucial but not strictly necessary for virus infection. Subsequently, four other mutants in the triplet encoding Arg284 were constructed and assayed. Results showed that symptoms and their timing were diverse for the different mutants, with enhanced pathogenicity and RNA accumulation always correlating with reversion to Arg284. Therefore, the nature of the mutation strongly influenced the genetic stability of the mutant. At least two mutants were identified for which reversion did not occur by 30 days postinoculation, and these were defined as good candidates to attain stable symptom attenuation that could be useful in cross-protection.

A CGMMV genome-replicon vector with partial sequences of coat protein gene efficiently expresses GFP in Nicotiana benthamiana

A highly infectious clone of Cucumber green mottle mosaic virus (CGMMV), a cucurbit-infecting tobamovirus was utilized for designing of gene expression vectors. Two versions of vector were examined for their efficacy in expressing the green fluorescent protein (GFP) in Nicotiana benthamiana. When the GFP gene was inserted at the stop codon of coat protein (CP) gene of the CGMMV genome without any read-through codon, systemic expression of GFP, as well as virion formation and systemic symptoms expression were obtained in N. benthamiana. The qRT-PCR analysis showed 23 fold increase of GFP over actin at 10days post inoculation (dpi), which increased to 45 fold at 14dpi and thereafter the GFP expression was significantly declined. Further, we show that when the most of the CP sequence is deleted retaining only the first 105 nucleotides, the shortened vector containing GFP in frame of original CP open reading frame (ORF) resulted in 234 fold increase of GFP expression over actin at 5dpi in N. benthamiana without the formation of virions and disease symptoms. Our study demonstrated that a simple manipulation of CP gene in the CGMMV genome while preserving the translational frame of CP resulted in developing a virus-free, rapid and efficient foreign protein expression system in the plant. The CGMMV based vectors developed in this study may be potentially useful for the production of edible vaccines in cucurbits.

Identification of the subgenomic promoter of the coat protein gene of cucumber fruit mottle mosaic virus and development of a heterologous expression vector

Heterologous gene expression using plant virus vectors enables research on host-virus interactions and the production of useful proteins, but the host range of plant viruses limits the practical applications of such vectors. Here, we aimed to develop a viral vector based on cucumber fruit mottle mosaic virus (CFMMV), a member of the genus Tobamovirus, whose members infect cucurbits. The subgenomic promoter (SGP) in the coat protein (CP) gene, which was used to drive heterologous expression, was mapped by analyzing deletion mutants from a CaMV 35S promoter-driven infectious CFMMV clone. The region from nucleotides (nt) -55 to +160 relative to the start codon of the open reading frame (ORF) of CP was found to be a fully active promoter, and the region from nt -55 to +100 was identified as the active core promoter. Based on these SGPs, we constructed a cloning site in the CFMMV vector and successfully expressed enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP) in Nicotiana benthamiana and watermelon (Citrullus lanatus). Co-inoculation with the P19 suppressor increased EGFP expression and viral replication by blocking degradation of the viral genome. Our CFMMV vector will be useful as an expression vector in cucurbits.

Development of an agroinoculation system for full-length and GFP-tagged cDNA clones of cucumber green mottle mosaic virus

The complete 6243-nucleotide sequence of a cucumber green mottle mosaic virus (CGMMV) isolate from bottle gourd in Zhejiang province, China, was determined. A full-length cDNA clone of this isolate was constructed by inserting the cDNA between the 35S promoter and the ribozyme in the binary plasmid pCB301-CH. A suspension of an Agrobacterium tumefaciens EHA105 clone carrying this construct was highly infectious in Nicotiana benthamiana and bottle gourd. Another infectious clone containing the green fluorescence protein (GFP) reporter gene was also successfully constructed. This study is the first report of the efficient use of agroinoculation for generating CGMMV infections.

Updates in inducible transgene expression using viral vectors: from transient to stable expression

The prospect of economically producing useful biologics in plants has greatly increased with the advent of viral vectors. The ability of viral vectors to amplify transgene expression has seen them develop into robust transient platforms for the high-level, rapid production of recombinant proteins. To adapt these systems to stably transformed plants, new ways of deconstructing the virus machinery and linking its expression and replication to chemically controlled promoters have been developed. The more advanced of these stable, inducible hyper-expression vectors provide both activated and amplified heterologous transgene expression. Such systems could be deployed in broad acre crops and provide a pathway to fully exploit the advantages of plants as a platform for the manufacture of a wide spectrum of products.

Overview of expression of hepatitis B surface antigen in transgenic plants

Hepatitis B virus (HBV), a pathogen for chronic liver infection, afflicts more than 350 million people world-wide. The effective way to control the virus is to take HBV vaccine. Hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) is an effective protective antigen suitable for vaccine development. At present, "edible" vaccine based on transgenic plants is one of the most promising directions in novel types of vaccines. HBsAg production from transgenic plants has been carried out, and the transgenic plant expression systems have developed from model plants (such as tobacco, potato and tomato) to other various plant platforms. Crude or purified extracts of transformed plants have been found to conduct immunological responses and clinical trials for hepatitis B, which gave the researches of plant-based HBsAg production a big boost. The aim of this review was to summarize the recent data about plant-based HBsAg development including molecular biology of HBsAg gene, selection of expression vector, the expression of HBsAg gene in plants, as well as corresponding immunological responses in animal models or human.

A tobamovirus expression vector for agroinfection of legumes and Nicotiana

The highest recombinant protein expression levels in plants have been achieved using tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) vectors via agroinoculation of the tobacco, Nicotiana benthamiana. These vectors have been utilized for pharmaceutical protein production and also can serve as rapid gene expression screens for proteonomics. We have constructed a similar vector based on the legume-infecting tobamovirus, sunn hemp mosaic virus (SHMV), by deleting the coat protein gene (SHMV eliminate coat protein gene or SHEC). SHEC/GFP co-agroinoculated with a 35S/p19 binary yielded 600 microg GFP/gfw (25% TSP) in N. benthamiana. In the absence of p19, SHEC/GFP expression was nearly eliminated. SHEC also yielded strong GUS production in agroinoculated Medicago trunculata, Pinto bean, cowpea, pea and lentil even without the aid of systemic infection. A full-length version (SHAC, SHMV alternate coat protein) was created by adding to SHEC the coat protein subgenomic promoter and ORF from the tobamovirus, tobacco mild green mottle virus (TMGMV). SHAC induced a slowly developing, symptomless infection of N. benthamiana and may be of use as a virus induced gene silencing (VIGS) vector.

The research progress of antitumorous effectiveness of Stichopus japonicus acid mucopolysaccharide in north of China

The sea cucumbers growing in the estuary of the Pohai of northern China are called Stichopus japonicus and are the orthodox holothurians in traditional Chinese medicine. There are multiple biological active ingredients in S. japonicus, and S. japonicus acid mucopolysaccharide (SJAMP) is one of the important ingredients. SJAMP has multiple pharmacologic actions, such as antitumor, immunologic regulation, anticoagulated blood, and antivirus. The research on antitumor has been carried out by way of animal experiments aiming at studying internal tumor-inhibiting effect of SJAMP, and the route of administration is usually peritoneal or intragastric. Additionally, sea cucumbers have been widely recognized and applied as medicated food or therapeutic prescriptions during and after the treatment of some tumors.

Virus-specific read-through codon preference affects infectivity of chimeric cucumber green mottle mosaic viruses displaying a dengue virus epitope

A Cucumber green mottle mosaic virus (CGMMV) was used to present a truncated dengue virus type 2 envelope (E) protein binding region from amino acids 379 to 423 (EB4). The EB4 gene was inserted at the terminal end of the CGMMV coat protein (CP) open reading frame (ORF). Read-through sequences of TMV or CGMMV, CAA-UAG-CAA-UUA, or AAA-UAG-CAA-UUA were, respectively, inserted in between the CP and the EB4 genes. The chimeric clones, pRT, pRG, and pCG+FSRTRE, were transcribed into full-length capped recombinant CGMMV transcripts. Only constructs with the wild-type CGMMV read-through sequence yielded infectious viruses following infection of host plant, muskmelon (Cucumis melo) leaves. The ratio of modified to unmodified CP for the read-through expression clone developed was also found to be approximately 1:1, higher than what has been previously reported. It was also observed that infectivity was not affected by differences in pI between the chimera and its wild counterpart. Analysis of recombinant viruses after 21-days-postinculation (dpi) revealed that deletions occurred resulting in partial reversions of the viral population to near wild type and suggesting that this would be the limiting harvest period for obtaining true to type recombinants with this construct.

Viral vectors for production of recombinant proteins in plants

Global demand for recombinant proteins has steadily accelerated for the last 20 years. These recombinant proteins have a wide range of important applications, including vaccines and therapeutics for human and animal health, industrial enzymes, new materials and components of novel nano-particles for various applications. The majority of recombinant proteins are produced by traditional biological "factories," that is, predominantly mammalian and microbial cell cultures along with yeast and insect cells. However, these traditional technologies cannot satisfy the increasing market demand due to prohibitive capital investment requirements. During the last two decades, plants have been under intensive investigation to provide an alternative system for cost-effective, highly scalable, and safe production of recombinant proteins. Although the genetic engineering of plant viral vectors for heterologous gene expression can be dated back to the early 1980s, recent understanding of plant virology and technical progress in molecular biology have allowed for significant improvements and fine tuning of these vectors. These breakthroughs enable the flourishing of a variety of new viral-based expression systems and their wide application by academic and industry groups. In this review, we describe the principal plant viral-based production strategies and the latest plant viral expression systems, with a particular focus on the variety of proteins produced and their applications. We will summarize the recent progress in the downstream processing of plant materials for efficient extraction and purification of recombinant proteins.