info:eu-repo/semantics/article
The membrane-anchoring region of the acmnpv p74 protein is expendable or interchangeable with homologs from other species
Fecha
2021-12Registro en:
Nugnes, María Victoria; Targovnik, Alexandra Marisa; Mengual Martí, Adrià; Miranda, María Victoria; Cerrudo, Carolina Susana; et al.; The membrane-anchoring region of the acmnpv p74 protein is expendable or interchangeable with homologs from other species; Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute; Viruses; 13; 12; 12-2021; 1-18
1999-4915
1999-4915
CONICET Digital
CONICET
Autor
Nugnes, María Victoria
Targovnik, Alexandra Marisa
Mengual Martí, Adrià
Miranda, María Victoria
Cerrudo, Carolina Susana
Herrero, Salvador
Belaich, Mariano Nicolas
Resumen
Baculoviruses are insect pathogens that are characterized by assembling the viral dsDNA into two different enveloped virions during an infective cycle: occluded virions (ODVs; immersed in a protein matrix known as occlusion body) and budded virions (BVs). ODVs are responsible for the primary infection in midgut cells of susceptible larvae thanks to the per os infectivity factor (PIF) complex, composed of at least nine essential viral proteins. Among them, P74 is a crucial factor whose activity has been identified as virus-specific. In this work, the p74 gene from AcMNPV was pseudogenized using CRISPR/Cas9 technology and then complemented with wild-type alleles from SeMNPV and HearSNPV species, as well as chimeras combining the P74 amino and carboxyl domains. The results on Spodoptera exigua and Rachiplusia nu larvae showed that an amino terminal sector of P74 (lacking two potential transmembrane regions but possessing a putative nuclear export signal) is sufficient to restore the virus infectivity whether alone or fused to the P74 transmembrane regions of the other evaluated viral species. These results provide novel information about the functional role of P74 and delimit the region on which mutagenesis could be applied to enhance viral activity and, thus, produce better biopesticides.