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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Microbiol.
Sec. Virology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2024.1458771
This article is part of the Research Topic Transmission and Infection of Arboviruses – Volume II View all 8 articles

Bioluminescent and Fluorescent Reporter-Expressing Recombinant Akabane Virus (AKAV): an excellent tool to dissect viral replication

Provisionally accepted
Jingjing Liu Jingjing Liu 1Fang Wang Fang Wang 1yinglin qi yinglin qi 1Jitao Chang Jitao Chang 1SUN CHAO SUN CHAO 1Zhigang Jiang Zhigang Jiang 1Junwei Ge Junwei Ge 2Xin Yin Xin Yin 1*
  • 1 Harbin Veterinary Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS), Harbin, China
  • 2 Northeast Agricultural University, Harbin, Heilongjiang Province, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Akabane virus (AKAV) is a worldwide epidemic arbovirus belonging to the Bunyavirales order that predominantly infects livestock and causes severe congenital malformations. Reporterexpressing recombinant virus represents a powerful tool to characterize the viral biology in vitro and in vivo. Here, we described the successful establishment of a reverse genetics system for AKAV. The recued virus possessed similar growth characteristics to the parental virus in vitro.Moreover, the recombinant AKAV reporter viruses expressing nanoluciferase (Nluc) or mWasabi were constructed by inserting into S segment, named rAKAV-Nluc and rAKAV-mWasabi, respectively. We then investigated the virological characteristics of rAKAV-Nluc and rAKAV-mWasabi and found that rAKAV-Nluc displayed similar growth kinetics as the parental virus and could stably produce the nano-luciferase even after ten rounds of serial passages. rAKAV-mWasabi also exhibited comparable growth kinetics and genetic stability as the parental virus. We further used the two reporter viruses to test the susceptibility of different cell lines to AKAV and found that cell lines derived from various host species, including human, swine, cattle and monkey enables AKAV replication efficiently, accelerating our understanding of the AKAV cell tropism range. Taken together, our established reverse genetics system for AKAV provides more convenient screening tools and can be used to study AKAV virulence and tropism, and to elucidate the molecular biology of AKAV.

    Keywords: Akabane virus, Reverse genetics system, reporter-expressing virus, Nanoluciferase, mWasabi, cell tropism

    Received: 03 Jul 2024; Accepted: 24 Oct 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Liu, Wang, qi, Chang, CHAO, Jiang, Ge and Yin. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Xin Yin, Harbin Veterinary Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS), Harbin, China

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.