Erez N, Paran N, Maik-Rachline G, Politi B, Israely T, Schnider P, Fuchs P, Melamed S, Lustig S. Induction of cell-cell fusion by ectromelia virus is not inhibited by its fusion inhibitory complex.
Virol J 2009;
6:151. [PMID:
19785778 PMCID:
PMC2760862 DOI:
10.1186/1743-422x-6-151]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/22/2009] [Accepted: 09/29/2009] [Indexed: 01/26/2023] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND
Ectromelia virus, a member of the Orthopox genus, is the causative agent of the highly infectious mousepox disease. Previous studies have shown that different poxviruses induce cell-cell fusion which is manifested by the formation of multinucleated-giant cells (polykaryocytes). This phenomenon has been widely studied with vaccinia virus in conditions which require artificial acidification of the medium.
RESULTS
We show that Ectromelia virus induces cell-cell fusion under neutral pH conditions and requires the presence of a sufficient amount of viral particles on the plasma membrane of infected cells. This could be achieved by infection with a replicating virus and its propagation in infected cells (fusion "from within") or by infection with a high amount of virus particles per cell (fusion "from without"). Inhibition of virus maturation or inhibition of virus transport on microtubules towards the plasma membrane resulted in a complete inhibition of syncytia formation. We show that in contrast to vaccinia virus, Ectromelia virus induces cell-cell fusion irrespectively of its hemagglutination properties and cell-surface expression of the orthologs of the fusion inhibitory complex, A56 and K2. Additionally, cell-cell fusion was also detected in mice lungs following lethal respiratory infection.
CONCLUSION
Ectromelia virus induces spontaneous cell-cell fusion in-vitro and in-vivo although expressing an A56/K2 fusion inhibitory complex. This syncytia formation property cannot be attributed to the 37 amino acid deletion in ECTV A56.
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