黄瓜花叶病毒卫星RNA人工突变体的构建及其侵染性测定

从1个369nt的黄瓜花叶病毒(Cucumbermosaicvirus,CMV)卫星RNA的cDNA出发,采用DNA改组技术构建人工突变体,经过体外转录,将其与不携带卫星RNA的黄瓜花叶病毒株进行假重组,鉴定突变体的生物活性,结果显示所获得的4个卫星RNA的点突变子MS1、MS5、MS6和MS11中,只有MS11仍然具有复制能力;而其他3个点突变子,尽管均只有1个位点的替换,却不能在辅助病毒作用下复制。序列比较分析发现MS11的突变位点位于卫星RNA变异区内,发生的突变与自发突变一致,其他3个突变子的突变位点发生在卫星RNA的高度保守区。而且通过侵染性试验证实突变子MS11与野生型Yi没有明显的差异。由此可推测卫星RNA序列中的高度保守区与卫星RNA的生物活性密切相关,个别碱基的突变会导致RNA二级结构的改变,进而引起其复制能力或稳定性的完全丧失。

Studies on construction of artificial mutants of Cucumber mosaic virus satellite RNA and their biological activity

Based on the full length cDNA clone of a Cucumber mosaic virus satellite RNA, which was 369nt in size, artificial mutants were developed by the method of error-prone PCR and DNA shuffling. The new satellite cDNAs were transcribed in vitro into ssRNA and pseudo-recombined with a helper Cucumber mosaic virus, which contains no satellite RNA. Sequence analysis showed that A to T/G or G to A replacement all the four mutants, named MS1, MS5, MS6 and MS11 respectively, and there is no C to G or G to C replacement, but amongst, only the mutants MS11 could replicated when recombined with the helper virus strain. No satellite RNA could be detected by RT-PCR amplification and double-stranded RNA analysis for those pseudo-recombination constitution of Cucumber mosaic virus strain with mutants MS1, MS5 and MS6.Sequence homological comparison showed that the single replacement of mutants MS1, MS5 and MS6 occurred in the highly conservative regions and the T to A replacement of mutant MS11 was located in the normal-variation region. This is the first artificial mutation of satellite RNA of plant RNA viruses. The results indicated that single base in the region of satellite RNA maybe important to maintaining the biological activity of satellite RNA for its replication and stability. The variation and evolution of satellite RNA could be hopefully studied through combination directed evolution by DNA shuffling with pseudo-recombination in vitro.