An attenuated replication-competent chikungunya virus with a fluorescently tagged envelope.

• Published in: PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases
• Main Authors: Jing Jin, Michael B Sherman, Daniel Chafets, Nuntana Dinglasan, Kai Lu, Tzong-Hae Lee, Lars-Anders Carlson, Marcus O Muench, Graham Simmons
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2018
• Subjects: Arctic medicine. Tropical medicine; RC955-962; Public aspects of medicine; RA1-1270; Arctic
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0006693; https://doaj.org/article/a2c9ded61f2a4fa1a4fbaed72ca3e21e

BACKGROUND:Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) is the most common alphavirus infecting humans worldwide, causing acute and chronically debilitating arthralgia at a great economic expense. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS:To facilitate our study of CHIKV, we generated a mCherry tagged replication-competent chimeric virus, CHIKV 37997-mCherry. Single particle cryoEM demonstrated icosahedral organization of the chimeric virus and the display of mCherry proteins on virus surface. CHIKV 37997-mCherry is attenuated in both IFNαR knockout and wild-type mice. Strong anti-CHIKV and anti-mCherry antibody responses were induced in CHIKV 37997-mCherry infected mice. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE:Our work suggests that chimeric alphaviruses displaying foreign antigen can serve as vaccines against both aphaviruses and other pathogens and diseases.