ARS | Publication request: Mutation and Recombination May Limit the Use of Cucumber Mosaic Virus As a Virus-Based Gene Expression Vector

Submitted to: American Phytopathological Society
Publication Acceptance Date: March 12, 2004
Publication Date: August 1, 2004
Citation: Hammond, R., Nemchinov, L.G., Zhao, Y. 2004. Mutation And Recombination May Limit The Use Of Cucumber Mosaic Virus As A Virus-Based Gene Expression Vector. American Phytopathological Society. 94(s):912

Technical Abstract: Cucumber mosaic virus (CMV), type member of the genus Cucumovirus in the family Bromoviridae, has among the widest host ranges among plant viruses, making it an attractive candidate as a viral-based transient expression vector for plants. A presentation system based on the coat protein (CP) of CMV as a display carrier was designed to express linear epitopes of the fusion and hemagglutinin-neuraminidase proteins of Newcastle Disease Virus (NDV), an avian paramyxovirus, as protein fusions in different regions of the CP. Recombinant CMV CP was placed either under the transcriptional control of the duplicated sub genomic promoter of Potato Virus X, or in infectious cDNA constructs of CMV. In the PVX constructs, CMV virus-like particles containing the F epitope were purified and reacted with anti-NDV sera. When the engineered CP was expressed in CMV, in some cases the modified CMV virus was infectious in plants and NDV epitopes expressed on the surface of the CMV CP were recognized by anti-NDV sera. In other cases, insertions were either partially or wholly deleted. These findings have implications for the utility of CMV-based chimeras as antigen presentation systems as well as for the study of mechanisms controlling RNA recombination and genome stability in CMV.