Molecular and biological characteristics, and cultivation of an attenuated strain 1974-VNIIVVIM of rift valley fever virus

In recent decades, a threat of spreading Rift Valley fever (RVF) to Asia and Europe raises serious concerns. Within many years, vaccines against RVF were developed in several ways including designing attenuated vaccine versions, inactivated or genetically engineered vaccines. A serious hazard of the RVF agent requires developing sufficiently immunogenic preparations providing both RVF specific prevention and safety precautions in production procedures. Therefore, this work was aimed at molecular and biological characterization of an attenuated RVF virus (RVFV) strain 1974-VNIIVViM including search for high-tech cell culture systems for the virus growth and determination of its antigenic and/or immunogenic relationship with a virulent strain Entebbe. The results of the investigations showed that the virus accumulated in continuous cell cultures like saiga kidney (SK), Siberian mountain goat kidney (PSGK-60) and MDVK (calve kidney cell culture) at high titers with infectious (8.53±0.21 lg MICLD 50/cm 3) and antigenic (1:64 to 1:128 in the passive hemagglutination test, PHT) activity levels. We determined optimal regime of the virus growth in BHK-21/13 (Syrian hamster kidney cell culture) using a roller culture method: the culture bottle rotation speed of 12 to 15 r.p.h.; the infection dosage of 0.01 to 0.001 MLD 50/cell; the first 12 hours of the culture at pH = 6.4 to 6.8. Further, pH is maintained at 7.2 to 7.6 for 48 to 72 hours of culture at 37 °С, which provides the raw virus production at high infectivity (8.5 to 8.9±0.2 lg MICLD 50/cm 3) and antigenicity (1:128 to 1:256 in PHT and 1:625 to 1:3125 in solid phase ELISA) levels. Phylogenetic analysis of the nucleotide sequences of 3 sites in S and/or M segments showed that it was closely related to strains Smithburn and Entebbe allowing their grouping into a separate cluster. Comparative analysis of nucleotide sequences of genes encoding glycoproteins Gn and Gc, and the nucleoprotein N, shows that most of the substitutions in the sequences of the genes of the RVFV strain 1974-VNIIVViM are synonymous and do not alter the primary amino acid sequence, with insertion and deletion missing. In the nucleotide sequence encoding glycoprotein Gn of strain 1974-VNIIVViM we found 8 substitutions relative to a similar sequence of M segment of a virulent strain Entebbe, and 14 substitutions when compared with M segment of strain Smithburn. A lower (as compared with other attenuated strains) amount of significant amino acid substitutions in RVFV antigenic components was revealed; thus, strain 1974-VNIIVViM selection as a source of immunodominant proteins and/or raw virus for vaccine production seems to be well-grounded.