Characterization of a continuous feline mammary epithelial cell line susceptible to feline epitheliotropic viruses

Extracellular Vesicles (EVs) Are Copurified with Feline Calicivirus, yet EV-Enriched Fractions Remain Infectious

Feline calicivirus (FCV) is a major cause of upper respiratory disease in cats and is often used as a model for human norovirus, making it of great veterinary and human medical importance. However, questions remain regarding the route of entry of FCV in vivo. Increasing work has shown that extracellular vesicles (EVs) can be active in viral infectivity, yet there is no work examining the role of EVs in FCV infection. Here, we begin to address this knowledge gap by characterizing EVs produced by a feline mammary epithelial cell line (FMEC). We have confirmed that EVs are produced by infected and mock-infected FMECs and that both virions and EVs are coisolated with standard methods of virus purification. We also show that they can be enriched differentially by continuous iodixanol density gradient. EVs were enriched at a density of 1.10 g/mL confirmed by tetraspanin expression, size profile, and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Maximum enrichment of FCV at a density of 1.18 g/mL was confirmed by titration, quantitative reverse transcriptase PCR (q-RT PCR), and TEM. However, infectious virus was recovered from nearly all samples. When used to infect in vitro epithelium, both EV-rich and virus-rich fractions had the same levels of infectiousness as determined by percentage of wells infected or titer achieved postinfection. These findings highlight the importance of coisolates during viral purification, showing that EVs may represent a parallel route of entry that has previously been overlooked. Additional experiments are necessary to explore the role of EVs in FCV infection. IMPORTANCE Feline calicivirus (FCV) is a common cause of upper respiratory infection in cats. Both healthy and infected cells produce small particles called extracellular vesicles (EVs), which are nanoparticles that act as messengers between cells and can be hijacked during viral infection. Historically, the role of EVs in viral infection has been overlooked, and subsequently no group has studied the role of EVs in FCV infection. We hypothesized that EVs may play a role in FCV infection. Here, we show that EVs are copurified with FCV when collecting virus. To study their individual effects, we successfully enrich for viral particles and EVs separately by taking advantage of their different densities. Our initial studies show that EV-enriched versus virus-enriched fractions are equally able to infect cells in culture. These findings highlight the need to both consider the purity of virus after purification and to further study EVs' role in natural FCV infection.

Caliciviridae Other Than Noroviruses

Besides noroviruses, the Caliciviridae family comprises four other accepted genera: Sapovirus, Lagovirus, Vesivirus, and Nebovirus. There are six new genera proposed: Recovirus, Valovirus, Bavovirus, Nacovirus, Minovirus, and Salovirus. All Caliciviridae have closely related genome structures, but are genetically and antigenically highly diverse and infect a wide range of mammalian host species including humans. Recombination in nature is not infrequent for most of the Caliciviridae, contributing to their diversity. Sapovirus infections cause diarrhoea in pigs, humans and other mammalian hosts. Lagovirus infections cause systemic haemorrhagic disease in rabbits and hares, and vesivirus infections lead to lung disease in cats, vesicular disease in swine, and exanthema and diseases of the reproductive system in large sea mammals. Neboviruses are an enteric pathogen of cattle, differing from bovine norovirus. At present, only a few selected caliciviruses can be propagated in cell culture (permanent cell lines or enteroids), and for most of the cultivatable caliciviruses helper virus-free, plasmid only-based reverse genetics systems have been established. The replication cycles of the caliciviruses are similar as far as they have been explored: viruses interact with a multitude of cell surface attachment factors (glycans) and co-receptors (proteins) for adsorption and penetration, use cellular membranes for the formation of replication complexes and have developed mechanisms to circumvent innate immune responses. Vaccines have been developed against lagoviruses and vesiviruses, and are under development against human noroviruses.

BB-Cl-Amidine as a novel therapeutic for canine and feline mammary cancer via activation of the endoplasmic reticulum stress pathway

Background

Mammary cancer is highly prevalent in dogs and cats and results in a poor prognosis due to critically lacking viable treatment options. Recent human and mouse studies have suggested that inhibiting peptidyl arginine deiminase enzymes (PAD) may be a novel breast cancer therapy. Based on the similarities between human breast cancer and mammary cancer in dogs and cats, we hypothesized that PAD inhibitors would also be an effective treatment for mammary cancer in these animals.

Methods

Canine and feline mammary cancer cell lines were treated with BB-Cl-Amidine (BB-CLA) and evaluated for viability and tumorigenicity. Endoplasmic reticulum stress was tested by western blot, immunofluorescence, and quantitative reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). Canine and feline mammary cancer xenograft models were created using NOD scid gamma (NSG) mice, and were treated with BB-CLA for two weeks.

Results

We found that BB-CLA reduced viability and tumorigenicity of canine and feline mammary cancer cell lines in vitro. Additionally, we demonstrated that BB-CLA activates the endoplasmic reticulum stress pathway in these cells by downregulating 78 kDa Glucose-regulated Protein (GRP78), a potential target in breast cancer for molecular therapy, and upregulating the downstream target gene DNA Damage Inducible Transcript 3 (DDIT3). Finally, we established a mouse xenograft model of both canine and feline mammary cancer in which we preliminarily tested the effects of BB-CLA in vivo.

Conclusion

We propose that our established mouse xenograft models will be useful for the study of mammary cancer in dogs and cats, and furthermore, that BB-CLA has potential as a novel therapeutic for mammary cancer in these species.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (10.1186/s12885-018-4323-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

A Comparative Study on the In Vitro Effects of the DNA Methyltransferase Inhibitor 5-Azacytidine (5-AzaC) in Breast/Mammary Cancer of Different Mammalian Species

Murine models are indispensible for the study of human breast cancer, but they have limitations: tumors arising spontaneously in humans must be induced in mice, and long-term follow up is limited by the short life span of rodents. In contrast, dogs and cats develop mammary tumors spontaneously and are relatively long-lived. This study examines the effects of the DNA methyltransferase (DNMT) inhibitor 5-Azacytidine (5-AzaC) on normal and tumoral mammary cell lines derived from dogs, cats and humans, as proof of concept that small companion animals are useful models of human breast cancer. Our findings show that treatment with 5-AzaC reduces in vitro tumorigenicity in all three species based on growth and invasion assays, mitochondrial activity and susceptibility to apoptosis. Interestingly, we found that the effects of 5-AzaC on gene expression varied not only between the different species but also between different tumoral cell lines within the same species, and confirmed the correlation between loss of methylation in a specific gene promotor region and increased expression of the associated gene using bisulfite sequencing. In addition, treatment with a high dose of 5-AzaC was toxic to tumoral, but not healthy, mammary cell lines from all species, indicating this drug has therapeutic potential. Importantly, we confirmed these results in primary malignant cells isolated from canine and feline adenocarcinomas. The similarities observed between the three species suggest dogs and cats can be useful models for the study of human breast cancer and the pre-clinical evaluation of novel therapeutics.

Molecular clone and characterization of c-Jun N-terminal kinases 2 from orange-spotted grouper, Epinephelus coioides

c-Jun N-terminal kinase 2 (JNK2) is a multifunctional mitogen-activated protein kinases involving in cell differentiation and proliferation, apoptosis, immune response and inflammatory conditions. In this study, we reported a new JNK2 (Ec-JNK2) derived from orange-spotted grouper, Epinephelus coioides. The full-length cDNA of Ec-JNK2 was 1920 bp in size, containing a 174 bp 5'-untranslated region (UTR), 483 bp 3'-UTR, and a 1263 bp open reading frame (ORF), which encoded a putative protein of 420 amino acids. The deduced protein sequence of Ec-JNK2 contained a conserved Thr-Pro-Tyr (TPY) motif in the domain of serine/threonine protein kinase (S-TKc). Ec-JNK2 has been found to involve in the immune response to pathogen challenges in vivo, and the infection of Singapore grouper iridovirus (SGIV) in vitro. Immunofluorescence staining showed that Ec-JNK2 was localized in the cytoplasm of grouper spleen (GS) cells, and moved to the nucleus after infecting with SGIV. Ec-JNK2 distributed in all immune-related tissues examined. After challenging with lipopolysaccharide (LPS), SGIV and polyriboinosinic polyribocytidylic acid (poly I:C), the mRNA expression of Ec-JNK2 was significantly (P < 0.01) up-regulated in juvenile orange-spotted grouper. Over-expressing Ec-JNK2 in fathead minnow (FHM) cells increased the SGIV infection and replication, while over-expressing the dominant-negative Ec-JNK2Δ181-183 mutant decreased it. These results indicated that Ec-JNK2 could be an important molecule in the successful infection and evasion of SGIV.

Distribution of the Feline Calicivirus Receptor Junctional Adhesion Molecule A in Feline Tissues

Junctional adhesion molecule A (JAM-A) is an immunoglobulin superfamily protein that plays an important role in the assembly and maintenance of tight junctions and the establishment of epithelial cell polarity. The feline JAM-A (fJAM-A) is a functional receptor for feline calicivirus (FCV). Among natural diseases associated with FCV infection, isolates that cause oral vesicular disease are detected in epithelial cells; however, isolates that cause systemic disease are detected in multiple cell types. The distribution of an FCV receptor or receptors in feline tissues is relevant to viral pathogenesis in that it should reflect the wide latitude of clinical sequelae associated with FCV infection. The authors examined the expression of feline JAM-A in the cat by using confocal immunofluorescence localization on normal tissues, with special regard to tissue targets of naturally occurring FCV. As described in the human and the mouse, fJAM-A was widely distributed in feline tissues, where it localized at cell–cell junctions of epithelial and endothelial cells. fJAM-A was highly expressed on feline platelets, with lower levels of expression on feline peripheral blood leukocytes. Additionally, FCV infection of a feline epithelial cell monolayer causes redistribution of fJAM-A to the cytosol of infected cells. It is reasonable to propose that the spectrum of lesions caused by FCV reflects disruption of intercellular junctions that rely on fJAM-A function and tight junctional integrity.