Journal of General Virology

Generation of infectious and transmissible virions from a GB virus B full-length consensus clone in tamarins

Andrea Sbardellati,¹ Elisa Scarselli,¹ Ernst Verschoor,² Amedeo De Tomassi,¹ Domenico Lazzaro¹ and Cinzia Traboni¹

¹ Istituto di Ricerche di Biologia Molecolare P. Angeletti (IRBM), Via Pontina Km 30.600, 00040 Pomezia (Roma), Italy
² Biomedical Primate Research Centre (BPRC), PO Box 3306, 2280 GH Rijswijk, The Netherlands

The strong similarity between GB virus B (GBV-B) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) makes tamarins infected by GBV-B an acceptable surrogate animal model for HCV infection. Even more attractive, for drug discovery purposes, is the idea of constructing chimeric viruses by inserting HCV genes of interest into a GBV-B genome frame. To accomplish this, infectious cDNA clones of both viruses must be available. The characterization of several HCV molecular clones capable of infecting chimpanzees has been published, whereas only one infectious GBV-B clone inducing hepatitis in tamarins has been reported so far. Here we describe the infection of tamarins by intrahepatic injection of RNA transcribed from a genomic GBV-B clone (FL-3) and transmission of the disease from infected to naive tamarins via serum inoculation. The disease resulting from both direct and secondary infection was characterized for viral RNA titre and hepatitis parameters as well as for viral RNA distribution in the hepatic tissue. Host humoral immune response to GBV-B antigens was also monitored. The progression of the disease was compared to that induced by intravenous injection of different amounts of the non-recombinant virus.

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© 2001 SGM

This article is now available in the October 2001 print issue of JGV (vol. 82, 2437–2448). The complete issue of the journal may be seen in electronic form on JGV Online.