Infectious reovirus subviral particles: virus replication, cellular cytopathology, and DNA synthesis

Addition of exogenous protease facilitates reovirus infection in many restrictive cells

Virion uncoating is a critical step in the life cycle of mammalian orthoreoviruses. In cell culture, and probably in extraintestinal tissues in vivo, reovirus virions undergo partial proteolysis within endosomal or/or lysosomal compartments. This process converts the virion into a form referred to as an intermediate subvirion particle (ISVP). In natural enteric reovirus infections, proteolytic uncoating takes place extracellularly within the intestinal lumen. The resultant proteolyzed particles, unlike intact virions, have the capacity to penetrate cell membranes and thereby gain access to cytoplasmic components required for viral gene expression. We hypothesized that the capacity of reovirus outer capsid proteins to be proteolyzed is a determinant of cellular host range. To investigate this hypothesis, we asked if the addition of protease to cell culture medium would expand the range of cultured mammalian cell lines that can be productively infected by reoviruses. We identified many transformed and nontransformed cell lines, as well as primary cells, that restrict viral infection. In several of these restrictive cells, virion uncoating is inefficient or blocked. Addition of proteases to the cell culture medium generates ISVP-like particles and promotes viral growth in nearly all cell lines tested. Interestingly, we found that some cell lines that restrict reovirus uncoating still express mature cathepsin L, a lysosomal protease required for virion disassembly in murine L929 cells. This finding suggests that factors in addition to cathepsin L are required for efficient intracellular proteolysis of reovirus virions. Our results demonstrate that virion uncoating is a critical determinant of reovirus cellular host range and that many cells which otherwise support productive reovirus infection cannot efficiently mediate this essential early step in the virus life cycle.

Reovirus virion-like particles obtained by recoating infectious subvirion particles with baculovirus-expressed sigma3 protein: an approach for analyzing sigma3 functions during virus entry

Structure-function studies with mammalian reoviruses have been limited by the lack of a reverse-genetic system for engineering mutations into the viral genome. To circumvent this limitation in a partial way for the major outer-capsid protein sigma3, we obtained in vitro assembly of large numbers of virion-like particles by binding baculovirus-expressed sigma3 protein to infectious subvirion particles (ISVPs) that lack sigma3. A level of sigma3 binding approaching 100% of that in native virions was routinely achieved. The sigma3 coat in these recoated ISVPs (rcISVPs) appeared very similar to that in virions by electron microscopy and three-dimensional image reconstruction. rcISVPs retained full infectivity in murine L cells, allowing their use to study sigma3 functions in virus entry. Upon infection, rcISVPs behaved identically to virions in showing an extended lag phase prior to exponential growth and in being inhibited from entering cells by either the weak base NH4Cl or the cysteine proteinase inhibitor E-64. rcISVPs also mimicked virions in being incapable of in vitro activation to mediate lysis of erythrocytes and transcription of the viral mRNAs. Last, rcISVPs behaved like virions in showing minor loss of infectivity at 52 degrees C. Since rcISVPs contain virion-like levels of sigma3 but contain outer-capsid protein mu1/mu1C mostly cleaved at the delta-phi junction as in ISVPs, the fact that rcISVPs behaved like virions (and not ISVPs) in all of the assays that we performed suggests that sigma3, and not the delta-phi cleavage of mu1/mu1C, determines the observed differences in behavior between virions and ISVPs. To demonstrate the applicability of rcISVPs for genetic studies of protein functions in reovirus entry (an approach that we call recoating genetics), we used chimeric sigma3 proteins to localize the primary determinants of a strain-dependent difference in sigma3 cleavage rate to a carboxy-terminal region of the ISVP-bound protein.

Protease cleavage of reovirus capsid protein mu1/mu1C is blocked by alkyl sulfate detergents, yielding a new type of infectious subvirion particle

Mammalian reovirus virions undergo partial disassembly of the outer capsid upon exposure to proteases in vitro, producing infectious subvirion particles (ISVPs) that lack protein sigma3 and contain protein mu1/mu1C as endoprotease-generated fragments mu1delta/delta and phi. ISVPs are thought to be required for two early steps in reovirus infection: membrane penetration and activation of the particle-bound viral transcriptase complexes. Genetic and biochemical evidence implicates outer-capsid protein mu1 in both these steps. To determine whether the cleavage of mu1/mu1C is relevant to the unique properties of ISVPs, we analyzed the properties of novel subvirion particles that lacked sigma3 yet retained mu1/mu1C in an uncleaved but cleavable form. These detergent-plus-protease subvirion particles (dpSVPs) were produced by treating virions with chymotrypsin in the presence of micelle-forming concentrations of alkyl sulfate detergents. Infections with dpSVPs in murine L or canine MDCK cells provided evidence that the cleavage of mu1/mu1C during viral entry into these cells is dispensable for reovirus infection. Additionally, dpSVPs behaved like ISVPs in their capacity to permeabilize lipid bilayers and to undergo transcriptase activation in vitro, supporting the conclusion that cleavage of mu1/mu1C to mu1delta/delta and phi during viral entry is not required for either membrane penetration or transcriptase activation in cells. The capacity of alkyl sulfate detergents to inhibit the cleavage of mu1/mu1C in a reversible fashion suggests a specific association between virus particle and detergent micelles that may mimic virus particle-phospholipid membrane interactions during reovirus entry into cells.

Modification of membrane permeability by animal viruses

Animal viruses modify membrane permeability during lytic infection. There is a co-entry of macromolecules and virion particules during virus penetration and a drastic change in transport and membrane permeability at the late stages of the lytic cycle. Both events are of importance to understand different molecular aspects of viral infection, as virus entry into the cell and the interference of virus infection with cellular metabolism. Other methods of cell permeabilization of potential relevance to understand the mechanism of viral damage of the membrane are also discussed.

Intracellular digestion of reovirus particles requires a low pH and is an essential step in the viral infectious cycle

Lysosomotropic drugs such as NH4Cl have been useful for studying the role of low pH in early events in virus infection. NH4Cl blocks the production of infectious progeny virus in mammalian reovirus-infected cells. The inhibitory effect of NH4Cl is mediated by an inhibition of intracellular digestion of reovirus outer capsid proteins. In vitro digestion of viral outer capsid proteins produces infectious partially uncoated particles, called intermediate subviral particles, which are no longer inhibited by the presence of NH4Cl. These results indicate that proteolytic processing of reovirus outer capsid proteins takes place in a low pH compartment of the cell and is an essential step in the viral infectious cycle.

Cellular integrity is required for inhibition of initiation of cellular DNA synthesis by reovirus type 3

Synchronized HeLa cells, primed for entry into the synthesis phase by amethopterin, were prevented from initiating DNA synthesis 9 h after infection with reovirus type 3. However, nuclei isolated from synchronized cells infected with reovirus for 9 or 16 h demonstrated a restored ability to synthesize DNA. The addition of enucleated cytoplasmic extracts from infected or uninfected cells did not affect this restored capacity for synthesis. The addition of ribonucleotide triphosphates to nuclei isolated from infected cells stimulated additional DNA synthesis, suggesting that these nuclei were competent to initiate new rounds of DNA replication. Permeabilization of infected cells did not restore the ability of these cells to synthesize DNA. Nucleoids isolated from intact or permeabilized cells, infected for 9 or 16 h displayed an increased rate of sedimentation when compared with nucleoids isolated from uninfected cells. Nucleoids isolated from the nuclei of infected cells demonstrated a rate of sedimentation similar to that of nucleoids isolated from the nuclei of uninfected cells. The inhibition of initiation of cellular DNA synthesis by reovirus type 3 appears not to have been due to a permanent alteration of the replication complex, but this inhibition could be reversed by the removal of that complex from factors unique to the structural or metabolic integrity of the infected cell.