Publikationsdatenbank

The Transcriptional Landscape of Marek's Disease Virus in Primary Chicken B Cells Reveals Novel Splice Variants and Genes (2019)

Art

Zeitschriftenartikel / wissenschaftlicher Beitrag

Autoren

Bertzbach, Luca D (WE 5)

Pfaff, Florian

Pauker, Viktoria I

Kheimar, Ahmed M (WE 5)

Höper, Dirk

Härtle, Sonja

Karger, Axel

Kaufer, Benedikt B (WE 5)

Quelle

Viruses

Bandzählung: 11

Heftzählung: 3

Seiten: E264

ISSN: 1999-4915

Sprache

Englisch

Verweise

URL (Volltext): https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4915/11/3/264

DOI: 10.3390/v11030264

Pubmed: 30884829

Kontakt

Institut für Virologie

Robert-von-Ostertag-Str. 7-13
14163 Berlin
+49 30 838 51833
virologie@vetmed.fu-berlin.de

Abstract / Zusammenfassung

Marek's disease virus (MDV) is an oncogenic alphaherpesvirus that infects chickens and poses a serious threat to poultry health. In infected animals, MDV efficiently replicates in B cells in various lymphoid organs. Despite many years of research, the viral transcriptome in primary target cells of MDV remained unknown. In this study, we uncovered the transcriptional landscape of the very virulent RB1B strain and the attenuated CVI988/Rispens vaccine strain in primary chicken B cells using high-throughput RNA-sequencing. Our data confirmed the expression of known genes, but also identified a novel spliced MDV gene in the unique short region of the genome. Furthermore, de novo transcriptome assembly revealed extensive splicing of viral genes resulting in coding and non-coding RNA transcripts. A novel splicing isoform of MDV UL15 could also be confirmed by mass spectrometry and RT-PCR. In addition, we could demonstrate that the associated transcriptional motifs are highly conserved and closely resembled those of the host transcriptional machinery. Taken together, our data allow a comprehensive re-annotation of the MDV genome with novel genes and splice variants that could be targeted in further research on MDV replication and tumorigenesis.