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July 7, 2019

Molecular and biological characterization of a new isolate of guinea pig cytomegalovirus.

Authors: Schleiss, Mark R and McAllister, Shane and Armién, Anibal G and Hernandez-Alvarado, Nelmary and Fernández-Alarcón, Claudia and Zabeli, Jason C and Ramaraj, Thiruvarangan and Crow, John A and McVoy, Michael A

Development of a vaccine against congenital infection with human cytomegalovirus is complicated by the issue of re-infection, with subsequent vertical transmission, in women with pre-conception immunity to the virus. The study of experimental therapeutic prevention of re-infection would ideally be undertaken in a small animal model, such as the guinea pig cytomegalovirus (GPCMV) model, prior to human clinical trials. However, the ability to model re-infection in the GPCMV model has been limited by availability of only one strain of virus, the 22122 strain, isolated in 1957. In this report, we describe the isolation of a new GPCMV strain, the CIDMTR strain. This strain demonstrated morphological characteristics of a typical Herpesvirinae by electron microscopy. Illumina and PacBio sequencing demonstrated a genome of 232,778 nt. Novel open reading frames ORFs not found in reference strain 22122 included an additional MHC Class I homolog near the right genome terminus. The CIDMTR strain was capable of dissemination in immune compromised guinea pigs, and was found to be capable of congenital transmission in GPCMV-immune dams previously infected with salivary gland-adapted strain 22122 virus. The availability of a new GPCMV strain should facilitate study of re-infection in this small animal model.

Journal: Viruses
DOI: 10.3390/v6020448
Year: 2014

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