Date of Award

4-2014

Degree Name

Master of Science

Department

Biological Sciences

First Advisor

Dr. Karim Essani

Second Advisor

Dr. Bruce Bejcek

Third Advisor

Dr. Brian Tripp

Keywords

Virology, poxvirus, tanapoxvirus, plaque size, virus replication

Access Setting

Masters Thesis-Open Access

Abstract

Tanapoxvirus (TPV) produces large but slow-forming plaques as opposed to vaccinia virus (VACV) that forms similar large plaques but more rapidly. A number of genes were identified in VACV, inclucding FllL, A33R, A34R and A36R that contribute to the regulation of virus release and dissemination, and are particularly responsible for the induction of actin tails. Among them, TPV lacks homologs of the FllL and A36R genes. F11Lmediated inhibition of RhoA-mDia signaling was shown to enhance the microtubules dynamics and modulates the cortical actin that assisted in the release of progeny virus from infected cells. To understand the possible effects of FllL in enhancing TPV replication, a TPV isolate encoding FllL was constructed and evaluated for its ability to increase both the rate of TPV replication and the plaque size in owl monkey kidney (OMK) cells. Taken together, these results strongly suggest that the expression of FllL by the recombinant TPV has the potential in hastening the replication of TPV.

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