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Journal of Virology, February 2004, p. 1936-1944, Vol. 78, No. 4
0022-538X/04/$08.00+0     DOI: 10.1128/JVI.78.4.1936-1944.2004
Copyright © 2004, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Reversible Inhibition of Spreading of In Vitro Infection and Imbalance of Viral Protein Accumulation at Low pH in Viral Hemorrhagic Septicemia Rhabdovirus, a Salmonid Rhabdovirus

V. Mas,¹ A. Rocha,² L. Perez,¹ J. M. Coll,² and A. Estepa^1*

IBMC, Miguel Hernández University, 03202 Elche,¹ INIA-SIGT, Biotecnología, 28040 Madrid, Spain²

Received 19 August 2003/ Accepted 17 October 2003

The inhibition of viral hemorrhagic septicemia rhabdovirus (VHSV) in vitro infection by pHs of <7 (low pH) has been previously reported. Nevertheless, the details of the mechanism underlying this effect remain obscure. We present evidence showing that low-pH inhibition occurs during a viral postadsorption step. Thus, while VHSV bound, replicated within single cells, and presented its G protein on the membranes of infected cells at both low and physiological pHs, both cell-to-cell spreading of infection (as estimated by the appearance of foci of infected cells) and fusion (as estimated by a syncytium assay) were inhibited by this low pH. The decreased VHSV titers and the inhibition of both cell-to-cell spreading of infection and fusion could be reversed by adjusting the pH to 7.5 at any time during infection. This effect should be taken into account to avoid false negatives in the diagnosis of VHSV by cell culture. On the other hand, the cell-to-cell spreading of infection at pH 7.5 could be stopped at any time by reducing the pH to 6.5. Since at low pH there were changes in the protein G conformation and smaller and imbalanced amounts of N with respect to M1, M2, and G viral proteins, alterations of the assembly and/or budding of VHSV are most probably involved in the absence of newly released infective virions.

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* Corresponding author. Mailing address: IBMC, Miguel Hernández University, 03202 Elche, Spain. Phone: 34-96-6658436. Fax: 34-96-6658758. E-mail: aestepa{at}umh.es.

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Journal of Virology, February 2004, p. 1936-1944, Vol. 78, No. 4
0022-538X/04/$08.00+0     DOI: 10.1128/JVI.78.4.1936-1944.2004
Copyright © 2004, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

This article has been cited by other articles:

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