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Deletion of the first glycosylation site promotes Lassa virus glycoprotein-mediated membrane fusion.

Siqi DongWenting MaoYang LiuXiaoying JiaYueli ZhangMinmin ZhouYuxia HouGengfu XiaoWei Wang
Published in: Virologica Sinica (2023)
The Lassa virus is endemic in West Africa and causes severe hemorrhagic Lassa fever in humans. The glycoprotein complex (GPC) of LASV is highly glycosylation-modified, with 11 N-glycosylation sites. All 11 N-linked glycan chains play critical roles in GPC cleavage, folding, receptor binding, membrane fusion, and immune evasion. In this study, we focused on the first glycosylation site because its deletion mutant (N79Q) results in an unexpected enhanced membrane fusion, whereas it exerts little effect on GPC expression, cleavage, and receptor binding. Meanwhile, the pseudotype virus bearing GPC N79Q was more sensitive to the neutralizing antibody 37.7H and was attenuated in virulence. Exploring the biological functions of the key glycosylation site on LASV GPC will help elucidate the mechanism of LASV infection and provide strategies for the development of attenuated vaccines against LASV infection.
Keyphrases
  • dna binding
  • binding protein
  • escherichia coli
  • poor prognosis
  • early onset
  • transcription factor
  • single molecule