Development of a vesicular stomatitis virus pseudotyped with herpes B virus glycoproteins and its application in a neutralizing antibody detection assay

Abstract

ABSTRACT Herpes B virus (BV) is a zoonotic virus and belongs to the genus Simplexvius , the same genus as human herpes simplex virus (HSV). BV typically establishes asymptomatic infection in its natural hosts, macaque monkeys. However, in humans, BV infection causes serious neurological diseases and death. As such, BV research can only be conducted in a high containment level facility (i.e., biosafety level [BSL] 4), and the mechanisms of BV entry have not been fully elucidated. In this study, we generated a pseudotyped vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) expressing BV glycoproteins using G-complemented VSV∆G system, which we named VSV/BVpv. We found that four BV glycoproteins (i.e., gB, gD, gH, and gL) were required for the production of a high-titer VSV/BVpv. Moreover, VSV/BVpv cell entry was dependent on the binding of gD to its cellular receptor nectin-1. Pretreatment of Vero cells with endosomal acidification inhibitors did not affect the VSV/BVpv infection. The result indicated that VSV/BVpv entry occurred by direct fusion with the plasma membrane of Vero cells and suggested that the entry pathway was similar to that of native HSV. Furthermore, we developed a VSV/BVpv-based chemiluminescence reduction neutralization test (CRNT), which detected the neutralization antibodies against BV in macaque plasma samples with high sensitivity and specificity. Crucially, the VSV/BVpv generated in this study can be used under BSL-2 condition to study the initial entry process through gD–nectin-1 interaction and the direct fusion of BV with the plasma membrane of Vero cells. IMPORTANCE Herpes B virus (BV) is a highly pathogenic zoonotic virus against humans. BV belongs to the genus Simplexvius , the same genus as human herpes simplex virus (HSV). By contrast to HSV, cell entry mechanisms of BV are not fully understood. The research procedures to manipulate infectious BV should be conducted in biosafety level (BSL)-4 facilities. As pseudotyped viruses provide a safe viral entry model because of their inability to produce infectious progeny virus, we tried to generate a pseudotyped vesicular stomatitis virus bearing BV glycoproteins (VSV/BVpv) by modification of expression constructs of BV glycoproteins, and successfully obtained VSV/BVpv with a high titer. This study has provided novel information for constructing VSV/BVpv and its usefulness to study BV infection.