Advances in Immunology and Microbiology Seminar Series
About the event
Featuring research in the areas of:
Epidemiology | Infectious Disease | Disease Ecology | Drug Discovery | Virology |
Global Health | Vector-Borne Disease | Pathology
The Advances in Immunology & Microbiology seminar series is a weekly forum that brings together scientists from diverse fields and disciplines across the College of Veterinary Medicine to discuss research advances in the broad areas of immunology, microbiology, infectious diseases, and global health. Seminars feature student speakers from the Immunology & Infectious Disease (IID) doctoral program, IID-affiliated postdoctoral researchers and faculty, intramural speakers from across the university, and extramural speakers.
PRESENTER: Dr. Colleen Lynch, BVSc; PhD candidate & Veterinary Anatomic Pathology Resident (Mentors: Dr. Anthony Nicola and Dr. Cristina Cunha)
TITLE: The Cytoplasmic Tail of Ovine Herpesvirus 2 Glycoprotein B Affects Cell Surface Expression and is Required for Membrane Fusion
ABSTRACT: Ovine herpesvirus 2 (OvHV-2) is a cause of the fatal veterinary disease malignant catarrhal fever. Fusion is an essential step in host cell entry of enveloped viruses and an important target for vaccine development. OvHV-2 cannot be propagated in vitro, so a virus-free cell-cell membrane fusion assay is necessary to elucidate its entry mechanism. In this assay, OvHV-2 fusion activity is detectable but low. We hypothesize that enhancing the cell surface expression of gB, the core herpesviral fusogen, will increase cell-cell fusion. We generated C-terminal truncation mutants of gB and determined their cell surface expression and fusion activity. Two mutants failed to function in fusion, suggesting that the cytoplasmic tail is critical for cell-cell fusion. One mutant (gB847) showed increased surface expression, correlating with similarly increased fusion activity. This suggests that gB847 may be used in place of wild type gB in an improved, more robust OvHV-2 fusion assay.