the role of equine herpesvirus type 4 glycoprotein k in virus replication马疱疹病毒4型糖蛋白的角色k在病毒复制.pdfVIP

Viruses 2012, 4, 1258-1263; doi:10.3390/v4081258 OPEN ACCESS viruses ISSN 1999-4915 /journal/viruses Communication The Role of Equine Herpesvirus Type 4 Glycoprotein K in Virus Replication Walid Azab †,* and Abuelyazeed El-Sheikh Department of Virology, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Zagazig University, Egypt; E-Mail: eaa000@ † Current address: Institute of Virology, Department of Veterinary Medicine, Free University of Berlin, Philippstrasse 13, Haus 18, 10115 Berlin, Germany. * Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; E-Mail: wfazab@zedat.fu-berlin.de. Received: 29 June 2012; in revised form: 31 July 2012 / Accepted: 3 August 2012 / Published: 7 August 2012 Abstract: Equine herpesvirus 4 (EHV-4) is an important equine pathogen that causes respiratory tract disease among horses worldwide. Glycoprotein K (gK) homologues have been identified in several alphaherpesviruses as a major player in virus entry, replication, and spread. In the present study, EHV-4 gK-deletion mutant has been generated by using bacterial artificial chromosome technology and Red mutagenesis to investigate the role of gK in EHV-4 replication. Our findings reported here show that gK is essential for virus replication in vitro and that the gK-negative strain was not able to be reconstituted in equine cells. It is noteworthy that these findings agree with the previously published study describing gK deletion