AI Article Synopsis

  • Marek's disease virus (MDV) causes serious health issues in chickens, with increasing virulence over the decades despite vaccination efforts.
  • The study explores two genetic variations in a protein called Meq, specifically an insertion (L-Meq) and a deletion (S-Meq), to determine their impact on the virus's ability to cause disease.
  • Findings show that the L-Meq version increases both the activity of the Meq protein and the virus's pathogenicity, while S-Meq decreases pathogenicity, highlighting the complex role of Meq in MDV virulence evolution.

Article Abstract

Marek's disease virus (MDV) causes malignant lymphoma in chickens (Marek's disease, MD). Although MD is currently controlled by vaccination, MDV strains have continuously increased in virulence over the recent decades. Polymorphisms in Meq, an MDV-encoded oncoprotein that serves as a transcription factor, have been associated with the enhanced virulence of the virus. In addition, insertions and deletions in Meq have been observed in MDV strains of higher virulence, but their contribution to said virulence remains elusive. In this study, we investigated the contribution of an insertion (L-Meq) and a deletion in the Meq gene (S-Meq) to its functions and MDV pathogenicity. Reporter assays revealed that both insertion and deletion enhanced the transactivation potential of Meq. Additionally, we generated RB-1B-based recombinant MDVs (rMDVs) encoding each Meq isoform and analyzed their pathogenic potential. rMDV encoding L-Meq indueced the highest mortality and tumor incidence in infected animals, whereas the rMDV encoding S-Meq exhibited the lowest pathogenicity. Thus, insertion enhanced the transactivation activity of Meq and MDV pathogenicity, whereas deletion reduced pathogenicity despite having increased transactivation activity. These data suggest that other functions of Meq affect MDV virulence. These data improve our understanding of the mechanisms underlying the evolution of MDV virulence.

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Source
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8876991PMC
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/v14020382DOI Listing

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