Previous Article | Next Article 
Journal of Virology, December 2004, p. 13356-13361, Vol. 78, No. 23
0022-538X/04/$08.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/JVI.78.23.13356-13361.2004
Copyright © 2004, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
Infection of Macrophage Primary Cultures by Persistent and Nonpersistent Strains of Theiler's Virus: Role of Capsid and Noncapsid Viral Determinants
Ignacio Mena,
Jean-Pierre Roussarie, and
Michel Brahic*
Unité des Virus Lents, CNRS URA 1330, Institut Pasteur, Paris, France
Received 5 December 2003/
Accepted 16 August 2004

ABSTRACT
We compared the infection of bone marrow macrophages by the
DA and GDVII strains of Theiler's virus and by two viruses constructed
by exchanging the DA and GDVII capsids. The replication of the
GDVII strain and of both chimeric viruses was restricted in
macrophages. Therefore, the infection of macrophages requires
both capsid and noncapsid viral determinants.

TEXT
The DA strain of Theiler's murine encephalomyelitis virus (TMEV)
causes a biphasic disease of the central nervous system (
11).
During the first phase TMEV infects neurons, causing an acute
encephalomyelitis, whereas during the second phase it infects
mainly macrophages and microglia (
5,
14,
20), and also oligodendrocytes
and astrocytes (
1), in the white matter of the spinal cord.
This second phase persists for life and causes primary demyelination,
which is studied as a model for multiple sclerosis. In contrast,
the GDVII strain kills most mice during the acute phase and
does not persist or induce demyelination (
10). Attenuated GDVII
mutants do not persist, indicating that attenuation and persistence
are distinct phenotypes (
9,
13).
DA virus persistence has been shown, by using mutant and recombinant viruses, to be linked to capsid and noncapsid determinants (12). One of the noncapsid determinants might be L*, a nonstructural protein expressed only by persistent strains (18, 19, 21, 22). However, the relative importance of capsid and noncapsid determinants for the infection of macrophages, the main reservoir during persistence, has not been studied in detail. In a previous publication, our investigators described infection by the DA strain of macrophages derived from the bone marrow of SJL/J mice (16). Because these cells come from a mouse strain susceptible to persistent infection and are not immortalized, they are an advantageous alternative to macrophage-like cell lines. In the present work, we infected them with the DA and GDVII viruses and with two chimeric viruses obtained by exchanging the capsid coding regions of these two viruses.
The replication of GDVII virus is restricted in macrophage primary cultures.
Bone marrow-derived macrophages were prepared from 8- to 9-week-old female SJL/J mice as described elsewhere (16). Briefly, red blood cell-depleted bone marrow cells were grown in RPMI 1640, 10% fetal bovine serum (FBS), and 10% L929 cell-conditioned medium as a source of macrophage colony-stimulating factor. After 6 days, clusters of nonadherent cells were harvested, and 2 x 105 cells were plated on 12-mm-diameter glass coverslips and incubated in RPMI 1640 medium, 10% FBS, and 2.5% L929-conditioned medium. After at least 24 h, each coverslip was washed with medium without serum, incubated for 2 h at 37°C with 106 PFU of virus, washed three times with warm medium, and then incubated with 500 µl of RPMI 1640, 2% FBS, and 2.5% L929-conditioned medium. Virus infectivity was measured in the medium by a standard plaque assay on BHK-21 cells. Figure 1 shows that the titer of DA virus increased about 10-fold between 10 and 24 h postinfection (p.i.) and then declined. The GDVII titers were considerably lower. We suspect that part of this infectivity corresponded to residual input virus, since similar titers were detected as early as 5 h p.i. (data not shown). The restricted expression of GDVII virus is striking, since in BHK-21 cells and in primary cultures of neurons its yield is 5 to 10 times higher than that of the DA or BeAn virus (8; I. Mena, unpublished observations).
The cells on the coverslips were fixed in 4% paraformaldehyde
(PFA), washed in phosphate-buffered saline (PBS), treated for
5 min with 0.1% Triton X-100 in PBS, and then blocked in 10%
normal goat serum. Viral antigens were detected with a rabbit
polyclonal serum (
2) and fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC)-conjugated
goat anti-rabbit immunoglobulin (Jackson Immuno-Research Laboratories).
Cell nuclei were counterstained with 0.2 µM ethidium homodimer
1 (Sigma-Aldrich). The slides were examined with a Zeiss Axioplan
2 microscope equipped with a Coolsnap HQ charge-coupled device
camera, and the images were acquired by using Simple PCI software
(Hamamatsu). A minimum of 5,000 cells from at least 10 individual
microscopic fields from four independent experiments were examined.
More than 6% of the macrophages contained DA antigens 10 h p.i.,
whereas this value was 3% for the GDVII virus (Table
1; Fig.
2). The percentage of DA antigen-positive macrophages increased
between 10 and 24 h p.i. (
P < 0.005), whereas that of GDVII-positive
cells did not. The intracellular distribution of DA antigens
changed with time (Fig.
2) (
16). At 10 h p.i., DA virus fluorescence
was intense and uniformly distributed throughout the cytoplasm,
whereas at 24 h p.i. and later, viral antigens often formed
cytoplasmic inclusions or showed a punctate pattern. Interestingly,
this dichotomy has been described in macrophages in vivo during
persistent infection (
4,
14). GDVII antigens, on the other hand,
gave only a weak and punctate fluorescence.
The ability to infect macrophages is due to both capsid and noncapsid determinants.
Viruses R2 and R3 were obtained by exchanging an AatII/AatII
restriction fragment, containing the entire capsid coding region
and small parts of the flanking regions, between the DA and
GDVII infectious cDNA (Fig.
3) (
17). The 5' crossover point
of these chimera is located 122 nucleotides downstream from
the start codon of the L* open reading frame. Therefore, virus
R2 has the DA capsid but does not express L*, whereas virus
R3 has the GDVII capsid and expresses the L* protein. Virus
R3 spreads efficiently in neurons in vitro, is highly neurovirulent
in vivo, and does not persist. Virus R2 infects neurons much
less efficiently, has low neurovirulence in vivo, and persists
(
8). Bone marrow-derived macrophages were infected in parallel
with viruses DA, GDVII, R2, and R3 (Table
1; Fig.
1 and
2).
Virus R2 had essentially the same phenotype as virus GDVII,
whereas the phenotype of virus R3 was intermediate between that
of its parental viruses. The titers of viruses R3 and DA increased
significantly between 10 and 24 h (
P < 0.005), whereas there
was no increase for viruses R2 and GDVII. At 24 h p.i., the
yield of virus R3 was lower than that of virus DA but higher
than those of viruses R2 and GDVII (
P < 0.005). Immunofluorescence
results were consistent with these data (Table
1; Fig.
2). Ten
percent and 5% of the cells were positive for DA and R3 viral
antigens, respectively, at the peak of virus production, whereas
the percentages were lower for viruses GDVII and R2 at all times
examined. DA and R3 antigens had a uniform, intense, fluorescence
pattern at early times and a punctate distribution later on.
In contrast, GDVII and R2 antigens showed only the punctate
pattern.
Flow cytometric analysis of macrophage permissiveness to viral replication.
The expression of capsid antigens was quantified by flow cytometry.
Single-cell suspensions of infected macrophages were obtained
using Dispase II (Roche) (
15), fixed in 4% PFA, incubated in
PBS, 0.5% saponin, and 0.5% normal goat serum, and then reacted
with the anti-TMEV polyclonal rabbit serum and a biotin-conjugated
rat monoclonal antibody against the CD11b macrophage marker
(Pharmingen). FITC-conjugated goat anti-rabbit immunoglobulin
(Jackson Immuno-Research Laboratories) and streptavidin-CyChrome
(Pharmingen) were used as secondary reagents. More than 99%
of the cells expressed CD11b. BHK-21 cells, a control, were
entirely CD11b negative (Fig.
4). DA and R3 viral antigens were
expressed by 15.4 and 10.9% of the cells, respectively, while
GDVII and R2 antigens were expressed by less than 1% of the
cells. The mean fluorescence intensity per positive cell was
higher for R3 virus than for DA virus. Therefore, although the
percentage of infected cells and the viral yield were lower
for virus R3 than for virus DA, on a single-cell basis, the
expression of capsid protein was similar for both viruses or
even higher for virus R3.
DA and GDVII viruses bind to macrophages with similar efficiency.
These results suggested that both capsid and noncapsid determinants
are important for the infection of SJL/J macrophages. We examined
the role of the capsid more directly by comparing the binding
of the viruses to macrophages. Single-cell suspensions of bone
marrow-derived macrophages were incubated for 1 h at 4°C
with 100 PFU of virus/cell, washed with ice-cold PBS, and fixed
in 4% PFA. Bound virus was detected by flow cytometry as described
above, but without permeabilization of the cells. Figure
5 shows
that the DA and GDVII viruses bound equally well to macrophages.
Similar results were obtained for the R2 and R3 viruses (data
not shown). Binding to BHK-21 cells was the same for the four
viruses (data not shown). Therefore, restricted expression of
the GDVII and R3 viruses in macrophages is not due to poor attachment
to the cells. This is congruent with the observations reported
above, which suggest that noncapsid determinants contribute
more to the infection of macrophages than capsid determinants.
Neutralizing the alpha/beta interferon response does not overcome
the restricted replication of the GDVII, R2, and R3 viruses.
The L protein of DA virus inhibits the production of

4 and ß
interferons (
23). L is the most polymorphic gene between the
DA and GDVII viruses, and we do not know if the L protein of
GD VII virus has an anti- interferon activity. Therefore, we
examined if restricted replication of viruses GDVII, R2, and
R3 (which have hybrid L genes) in macrophages could be due to
inefficient inhibition of interferon production by their L proteins.
Macrophages were infected with the different viruses and washed
three times, and a 1:50 or 1:500 dilution of a neutralizing
anti-alpha/beta interferon serum (I. Gresser, Institut Curie,
Paris, France) was added to the medium. Viral yields were measured
24 h p.i., at the peak of virus production. For the four viruses,
the presence of the antibody increased the titer in a dose-dependent
manner (Fig.
6). Neutralizing interferon did not change the
ratios between the infectivity titers produced by each strain.
Therefore, the production of interferon and/or the susceptibility
to interferon was similar for the four viruses. The more-restricted
yields of viruses GD VII, R2, and R3 are not explained by an
increased sensitivity to the interferon response.
R2 virus does not infect macrophages efficiently in vivo.
Virus DA persists in vivo in macrophages. Virus R2, which bears
the DA capsid but lacks L*, also persists in vivo although it
infects macrophages inefficiently in vitro. Therefore, we asked
whether the R2 virus persists in macrophages or in another central
nervous system cell type. Groups of five SJL/J mice were inoculated
intracerebrally with 5
x 10
4 or 5
x 10
5 PFU of either DA or
R2 virus and sacrificed 45 days later. The mice were perfused
with PBS followed by 2% PFA. The spinal cords were dissected,
postfixed in 4% PFA, and incubated in 15% sucrose overnight.
Tissue blocks were snap-frozen and cut on a cryostat to perform
immunofluorescence. CD11b was detected with a rat monoclonal
antibody and a Cy3-coupled secondary antibody. Viral capsid
antigens were detected with a rabbit polyclonal serum and a
goat anti-rabbit antibody coupled to Alexa 488. Figure
7 illustrates
the two patterns of intracellular viral antigen (TMEV
hi and
TMEV
lo) observed. TMEV
hi corresponds to cells with intense diffuse
fluorescence, and TMEV
lo corresponds to cells with faint punctate
fluorescence. Both patterns have already been observed in vivo
(
4,
14) as well as in primary bone marrow macrophages in vitro
(reference
16 and this study). The sections were scanned systematically,
and virus-positive cells were recorded for their CD11b
+ or CD11b
phenotype and their TMEV
hi or TMEV
lo phenotype. The number of
infected cells was much larger in DA-infected mice than in R2-infected
mice. Table
2 shows that virus R2 persisted mainly in macrophages,
almost all of them (97%) with a TMEV
lo phenotype, whereas DA
virus persisted in macrophages with either a TMEV
lo (44%) or
a TMEV
hi (56%) phenotype. Therefore, both viruses persisted
in macrophages, but the number of infected macrophages and the
level of expression of viral antigen per macrophage were much
lower for virus R2 than for virus DA.
Figure
5 shows that the DA and GDVII strains bind equally well
to macrophages. A similar result was reported for the binding
of the BeAn and GDVII strains to the macrophage-derived P388D1
line (
6). DA and R2 viruses, which have the same capsid, gave
the highest and the lowest yields, respectively, of infectivity
in macrophages (Fig.
1). Therefore, the capsid does not seem
to play an essential role in the tropism of DA virus for macrophages.
This contrasts with its major role in tropism for neurons and
in in vivo neurovirulence (
3,
7,
17). On the other hand, our
results corroborate the notion that the L* protein is important
for the infection of macrophages, since the DA and R3 viruses,
which express L*, replicated in macrophages better than the
GDVII and R2 viruses, which lack the L* AUG (Fig.
4). Interestingly,
virus R3, whose yield is lower that that of DA virus, has a
chimeric L*. The titers produced by viruses R2 and R3 did not
add up to the yield of DA virus, suggesting capsid and noncapsid
determinants interact to give DA virus its full phenotype. We
found that, although it lacks L*, virus R2 persists in vivo
in macrophages. However, the number of infected macrophages
and the level of capsid expression in these cells were much
lower than for virus DA (Fig.
7; Table
2). Therefore, our results
confirm that infecting macrophages is important for TMEV's persistence
and that L* plays a role in this phenotype, both in vitro and
in vivo.
In summary, we showed that the replication of strain GDVII is highly impaired in bone marrow-derived macrophages compared to that of strain DA. The results obtained with two chimeric viruses suggest that genetic determinants in the capsid and the noncapsid regions must coexist in the viral genome to allow efficient infection of SJL/J macrophages and that protein L* has an important role in this phenotype.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We thank Emmanuelle Perret from the Centre d'Imagerie Dynamique
(Institut Pasteur, Paris, France) for her help with the immunofluorescence
imaging, Ion Gresser (Institut Curie) for the neutralizing anti-interferon
serum, Galina Karachtchouk for unpublished experimental data,
Jean-François Bureau and Thomas Michiels for critically
reading the manuscript, and Mireille Gau for secretarial assistance.
I. Mena held fellowships from EMBO, the Fondation pour la Recherche Médicale, and the Association pour la Recherche sur le Cancer. Work on Theiler's virus in the Brahic laboratory is supported by the Institut Pasteur, the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, and the Association pour la Recherche sur la Sclérose en Plaques.

FOOTNOTES
* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Unité des Virus Lents, CNRS URA 1930, Département de Virologie, Institut Pasteur, 75724 Paris Cedex 15, France. Phone: 331-45688867. Fax: 331-140613167. E-mail:
mbrahic{at}pasteur.fr.

Present address: Departamento de Biotecnologia, INIA, 28040 Madrid, Spain. 

REFERENCES
1 - Aubert, C., M. Chamorro, and M. Brahic. 1987. Identification of Theiler's virus infected cells in the central nervous system of the mouse during demyelinating disease. Microb. Pathog. 3:319-326.[CrossRef][Medline]
2 - Brahic, M., A. T. Haase, and E. Cash. 1984. Simultaneous in situ detection of viral RNA and antigens. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 81:5445-5448.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
3 - Calenoff, M. A., K. S. Faaberg, and H. L. Lipton. 1990. Genomic regions of neurovirulence and attenuation in Theiler's murine encephalomyelitis virus. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 87:978-982.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
4 - Cash, E., M. Chamorro, and M. Brahic. 1985. Theiler's virus RNA and protein synthesis in the central nervous system of demyelinating mice. Virology 144:290-294.[CrossRef][Medline]
5 - Clatch, R. J., S. D. Miller, R. Metzner, M. C. Dal Canto, and H. L. Lipton. 1990. Monocytes/macrophages isolated from the mouse central nervous system contain infectious Theiler's murine encephalomyelitis virus (TMEV). Virology 176:244-254.[CrossRef][Medline]
6 - Fotiadis, C., D. R. Kilpatrick, and H. L. Lipton. 1991. Comparison of the binding characteristics to BHK-21 cells of viruses representing the two Theiler's virus neurovirulence groups. Virology 182:365-370.[CrossRef][Medline]
7 - Fu, J., S. Stein, L. Rosenstein, T. Bodwell, M. Routbort, B. L. Semler, and R. P. Roos. 1990. Neurovirulence determinants of genetically engineered Theiler's virus. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 87:4125-4129.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
8 - Jarousse, N., S. Syan, C. Martinat, and M. Brahic. 1998. The neurovirulence of the DA and GDVII strains of Theiler's virus correlates with their ability to infect cultured neurons. J. Virol. 72:7213-7220.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
9 - Jarousse, N., E. G. Viktorova, E. V. Pilipenko, V. I. Agol, and M. Brahic. 1999. An attenuated variant of the GDVII strain of Theiler's virus does not persist and does not infect the white matter of the central nervous system. J. Virol. 73:801-804.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
10 - Lipton, H. L. 1980. Persistent Theiler's murine encephalomyelitis virus infection in mice depends on plaque size. J. Gen. Virol. 46:169-177.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
11 - Lipton, H. L. 1975. Theiler's virus infection in mice: an unusual biphasic disease process leading to demyelination. Infect. Immun. 11:1147-1155.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
12 - Lipton, H. L., and M. L. Jelachich. 1997. Molecular pathogenesis of Theiler's murine encephalomyelitis virus-induced demyelinating disease in mice. Intervirology 40:143-152.[Medline]
13 - Lipton, H. L., A. E. Pritchard, and M. A. Calenoff. 1998. Attenuation of neurovirulence of Theiler's murine encephalomyelitis virus strain GDVII is not sufficient to establish persistence in the central nervous system. J. Gen. Virol. 79:1001-1004.[Abstract]
14 - Lipton, H. L., G. Twaddle, and M. L. Jelachich. 1995. The predominant virus antigen burden is present in macrophages in Theiler's murine encephalomyelitis virus-induced demyelinating disease. J. Virol. 69:2525-2533.[Abstract]
15 - Luder, C. G., T. Lang, B. Beuerle, and U. Gross. 1998. Down-regulation of MHC class II molecules and inability to up-regulate class I molecules in murine macrophages after infection with Toxoplasma gondii. Clin. Exp. Immunol. 112:308-316.[CrossRef][Medline]
16 - Martinat, C., N. Mena, and M. Brahic. 2002. Theiler's virus infection of primary cultures of bone marrow-derived monocytes/macrophages. J. Virol. 76:12823-12833.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
17 - McAllister, A., F. Tangy, C. Aubert, and M. Brahic. 1990. Genetic mapping of the ability of Theiler's virus to persist and demyelinate. J. Virol. 64:4252-4257. (Author's correction, 67:2427, 1993.)[Abstract/Free Full Text]
18 - Michiels, T., N. Jarousse, and M. Brahic. 1995. Analysis of the leader and capsid coding regions of persistent and neurovirulent strains of Theiler's virus. Virology 214:550-558.[CrossRef][Medline]
19 - Obuchi, M., J. Yamamoto, T. Odagiri, M. N. Uddin, H. Iizuka, and Y. Ohara. 2000. L* protein of Theiler's murine encephalomyelitis virus is required for virus growth in a murine macrophage-like cell line. J. Virol. 74:4898-4901.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
20 - Pena Rossi, C., M. Delcroix, I. Huitinga, A. McAllister, N. van Rooijen, E. Claassen, and M. Brahic. 1997. Role of macrophages during Theiler's virus infection. J. Virol. 71:3336-3340.[Abstract]
21 - Takata, H., M. Obuchi, J. Yamamoto, T. Odagiri, R. P. Roos, H. Iizuka, and Y. Ohara. 1998. L* protein of the DA strain of Theiler's murine encephalomyelitis virus is important for virus growth in a murine macrophage-like cell line. J. Virol. 72:4950-4955.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
22 - van Eyll, O., and T. Michiels. 2000. Influence of the Theiler's virus L* protein on macrophage infection, viral persistence, and neurovirulence. J. Virol. 74:9070-9077.
23 - van Pesch, V., O. van Eyll, and T. Michiels. 2001. The leader protein of Theiler's virus inhibits immediate-early alpha/beta interferon production. J. Virol. 75:7811-7817.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
Journal of Virology, December 2004, p. 13356-13361, Vol. 78, No. 23
0022-538X/04/$08.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/JVI.78.23.13356-13361.2004
Copyright © 2004, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
This article has been cited by other articles:
-
Christophi, G. P., Hudson, C. A., Panos, M., Gruber, R. C., Massa, P. T.
(2009). Modulation of Macrophage Infiltration and Inflammatory Activity by the Phosphatase SHP-1 in Virus-Induced Demyelinating Disease. J. Virol.
83: 522-539
[Abstract]
[Full Text]
-
Son, K.-N., Becker, R. P., Kallio, P., Lipton, H. L.
(2008). Theiler's Virus-Induced Intrinsic Apoptosis in M1-D Macrophages Is Bax Mediated and Restricts Virus Infectivity: a Mechanism for Persistence of a Cytolytic Virus. J. Virol.
82: 4502-4510
[Abstract]
[Full Text]
-
Paul, S., Michiels, T.
(2006). Cardiovirus leader proteins are functionally interchangeable and have evolved to adapt to virus replication fitness.. J. Gen. Virol.
87: 1237-1246
[Abstract]
[Full Text]