Genomic regions of neurovirulence and attenuation in Theiler murine encephalomyelitis virus.

Full-length cDNA clones of two Theiler murine encephalomyelitis virus (TMEV) strains, one highly virulent and the other less virulent, were constructed in the bacterial plasmid pGEMR-3. Transfection of BHK-21 cells with RNA transcribed from these cDNAs yielded progeny viruses with the exact in vitro growth phenotype and mouse neurovirulence pattern of the respective parental virus strains. RNA transcripts derived from recombinant chimeras constructed by exchanging corresponding genomic regions [5' noncoding, leader/P1 (L/P1), P2, P3, and 3' noncoding] between the parental cDNAs were infectious and enabled analysis of the growth characteristics in vitro and mouse neurovirulence of the chimeras. A correlation was found between plaque size and temperature sensitivity and the origin of the L/P1 region. Neurovirulence mapped primarily to the L/P1 region encoding the leader and coat proteins. Depending on parental origin, the 5' noncoding region either influenced virus attenuation or augmented virulence.