A REVERSE GENETIC SYSTEM FOR ROTAVIRUS

Studies on rotavirus biology have always suffered for the lack of a reverse genetics system applicable to all genome segments and independent from the use of helper virus. One of the main reasons proposed to explain the difficulties encountered is the poor expression of the transfected cDNAs. In this work we investigated the role of 5’UTRs in rotavirus cDNAs expression in un-infected cells. We showed that in the 5’UTR of several (but not all) genome segments of rotavirus is present a 5’-terminal inhibitory motif (IM = 5’-GGY(U/A)UY-3’) that, independently from the ORF or the 3’UTR, downregulates both transcription and translation of rotavirus cDNAs when expressed exploiting T7 polymerase-encoding recombinant vaccinia virus. We mapped two mutations (insertion of a G upstream 5’UTR and the U to A mutation of the fifth nucleotide of IM) that are capable of making the inhibitory motif non-functional restoring a satisfying yield of protein synthesis. After the analysis of all genome segment 5’UTR of SA11 strain, we created two distinct sets of mutated rotavirus genome segments containing non-functional IM. We planned to employ these sets in the development of a plasmid-based reverse genetics system that exploit vaccinia virus-encoded T7 polymerase. In an attempt to produce in vivo biotinylated Tripled-Layered Particles (TLPs), we created a recombinant VP4 fused to the Biotin Acceptor Peptide (BAP) that, when co-expressed with the biotin ligase BirA, is efficiently in vivo biotinylated. We exploited recombinant vaccinia virus system to achieve high levels of VP4-BAP and the enzyme BirA in cells. Upon infection with rotavirus, VP4-BAP would be incorporated in the newly forming viral particles. In addition, we constructed a full-length genome segment 4 cDNA encoding the recombinant VP4-BAP to be used with a VP4 temperature sensitive rotavirus in order to generate a recombinant rotavirus encoding VP4-BAP. Thus, the results obtained allowed us to design two distinct possible ways of generating recombinant rotavirus. The first was a genetic strategy for the incorporation of an exogenous genomic segment, with the characteristic of being helper-virus free and applicable to all genomic segments. This was the consequence of the description of an inhibitory motif present in many viral mRNAs and the identification of two mutations that abrogate its inhibitory activity allowing expression of viral proteins. The second focused on the expression of a recombinant viral structural protein expressed in virus-infected cells for the consequent incorporation into newly made virions