Publikationsdatenbank

A cell culture system to investigate Marek's disease virus integration into host chromosomes (2021)

Art

Zeitschriftenartikel / wissenschaftlicher Beitrag

Autoren

You, Yu (WE 5)

Vychodil, Tereza (WE 5)

Aimola, Giulia (WE 5)

Previdelli, Renato L. (WE 5)

Göbel, Thomas W.

Bertzbach, Luca D. (WE 5)

Kaufer, Benedikt B. (WE 5)

Quelle

Microorganisms : open access journal

Bandzählung: 9

Heftzählung: 12

Seiten: Artikel 2489

ISSN: 2076-2607

Sprache

Englisch

Verweise

URL (Volltext): https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2607/9/12/2489

DOI: 10.3390/microorganisms9122489

Pubmed: 34946091

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 a highly oncogenic alphaherpesvirus that causes a devastating neoplastic disease in chickens. MDV has been shown to integrate its genome into the telomeres of latently infected and tumor cells, which is crucial for efficient tumor formation. Telomeric repeat arrays present at the ends of the MDV genome facilitate this integration into host telomeres; however, the integration mechanism remains poorly understood. Until now, MDV integration could only be investigated qualitatively upon infection of chickens. To shed further light on the integration mechanism, we established a quantitative integration assay using chicken T cell lines, the target cells for MDV latency and transformation. We optimized the infection conditions and assessed the establishment of latency in these T cells. The MDV genome was efficiently maintained over time, and integration was confirmed in these cells by fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH). To assess the role of the two distinct viral telomeric repeat arrays in the integration process, we tested various knockout mutants in our in vitro integration assay. Efficient genome maintenance and integration was thereby dependent on the presence of the telomeric repeat arrays in the virus genome. Taken together, we developed and validated a novel in vitro integration assay that will shed light on the integration mechanism of this highly oncogenic virus into host telomeres.