J Mol Genet Med 2011, Vol 5, 266-00 doi: jmgm Published online: 31 December 2011 Full Text: (PDF~659kb | refs) Inactivation of the tick-borne encephalitis virus by RNA-cleaving compounds Elena P Goncharova †‡, Ludmila S Koroleva †¥, Vladimir N Silnikov †, Vladimir A Ternovoy ‡, Valentin V Vlassov † and Marina A Zenkova †* † Institute of Chemical Biology and Fundamental Medicine, Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, 8, 630090, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation ‡ State Research Centre of Virology and Biotechnology VECTOR Rospotrebnadzor, 630559, Koltsovo, Novosibirsk region, Russian Federation ¥ Novosibirsk State University, 2, Pirogov St., 630090 Novosibirsk, Russian Federation *Correspondence to: Marina Zenkova, E-mail: marzen@niboch.nsc.ru, Tel: +7 383 3635160; Fax: +7 383 3635153 Received: 22 October 2011, Revised: 20 December 2011, Accepted: 21 December 2011 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The tick-borne encephalitis virus (TBEV) is an RNA-containing enveloped virus, which poses a major threat to the well-being and health of humans. In this study, we describe an approach to the inactivation of TBEV, which involves the degradation of viral RNA by artificial ribonucleases (aRNases, small organic compounds that exhibit ribonuclease activity in vitro). We demonstrate that the incubation of TBEV with aRNases lead to the total inactivation of the virus as indicated by the plaque formation assay data, but retain the viral immunogenic properties, shown by the ELISA data. We propose that a possible mechanism of TBEV inactivation with aRNase, which includes: i) formation of local breaks in the lipid membrane of the virus caused by aRNase, ii) penetration of aRNase into the viral capsid, iii) degradation of genomic RNA by aRNase. These data suggest that the proposed approach can be used in the production of killed-virus vaccine. KEYWORDS: Artificial ribonucleases; RNA-containing viruses; Tick-borne encephalitis; Virus inactivation ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Privacy | Disclaimer |
