Jpn. J. Infect. Dis., 55, 143-149, 2002
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Review
Toward Understanding the Pathogenicity of Wild-Type Measles Virus by Reverse Genetics
Kaoru Takeuchi*, Makoto Takeda1 and Naoko Miyajima2
Department of Infection Biology, Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, University of Tsukuba, Tennodai 1-1-1, Tsukuba, Ibaragi 305-8575, 2Department of Virology III, National Institute of Infectious Diseases, Gakuen 4-7-1, Musashimurayama, Tokyo 208-0011, Japan and 1Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Cell Biology, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208-3500, USA
(Received September 3, 2002. Accepted October 21, 2002)
CONTENTS:
1. Introduction
2. Nucleotide sequence analysis of wild-type measles virus
3. Recovery of infections measles virus from cloned cDNA of the
IC-B strain
4. Characterization of the recovered virus
5. Construction of H gene chimera viruses
6. Conclusion
SUMMARY: The Edmonston (Ed) strain of measles virus (MV)
isolated in primary human kidney cells in 1954 has long been thought
of as a representative MV strain. But this view has been challenged
by wild-type MV strains isolated in marmoset B-lymphoblastoid
B95a cells. Although the Ed strain is not pathogenic in monkey
models, wild-type MV isolated in B95a cells from measles patients
induces clinical signs typical of human measles, indicating that
wild-type MV retains its pathogenicity. In addition, wild-type
MV has restricted cell tropism and replicates only in B95a and
some lymphocyte cell lines. This is in sharp contrast to the ability
of the Ed strain to replicate in a variety of human cell lines.
To understand the molecular basis for the pathogenicity and the
cell tropism of wild-type MV, we have established a reverse genetics
system based on a highly pathogenic wild-type MV strain (IC-B)
isolated in B95a cells. By using this system, we have constructed
recombinant wild-type and Ed strains of MV bearing heterologous
envelope hemagglutinin (H) proteins, and we have examined roles
of the H protein in determining the cell tropism. Our results
clearly indicate that the MV cell tropism is determined by not
only the H protein, but also other viral proteins. We thus propose
the presence of another unidentified MV receptor on the surface
of Vero cells.
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