Mechanism and significance of cell type-dependent neutralization of flaviviruses.

Unlabelled: The production of neutralizing antibodies (NAbs) is a correlate of protection for many human vaccines, including currently licensed vaccines against flaviviruses. NAbs are typically measured using a plaque reduction neutralization test (PRNT). Despite its extensive use, parameters that impact the performance of the PRNT have not been investigated from a mechanistic perspective.

The Fc region of an antibody impacts the neutralization of West Nile viruses in different maturation states.

Flavivirus-infected cells secrete a structurally heterogeneous population of viruses because of an inefficient virion maturation process. Flaviviruses assemble as noninfectious, immature virions composed of trimers of envelope (E) and precursor membrane (prM) protein heterodimers. Cleavage of prM is a required process during virion maturation, although this often remains incomplete for infectious virus particles.

A novel approach for the rapid mutagenesis and directed evolution of the structural genes of west nile virus.

Molecular clone technology has proven to be a powerful tool for investigating the life cycle of flaviviruses, their interactions with the host, and vaccine development. Despite the demonstrated utility of existing molecular clone strategies, the feasibility of employing these existing approaches in large-scale mutagenesis studies is limited by the technical challenges of manipulating relatively large molecular clone plasmids that can be quite unstable when propagated in bacteria. We have developed a novel strategy that provides an extremely rapid approach for the introduction of mutations into the structural genes of West Nile virus (WNV).

The infectivity of prM-containing partially mature West Nile virus does not require the activity of cellular furin-like proteases.

Cleavage of the flavivirus prM protein by a cellular furin-like protease is a hallmark of virion maturation. While this cleavage is a required step in the viral life cycle, it can be inefficient. Virions that retain uncleaved prM may be infectious.