Artificially inserting a reticuloendotheliosis virus long terminal repeat into a bacterial artificial chromosome clone of Marek's disease virus (MDV) alters expression of nearby MDV genes.

Researchers reported that co-cultivating the JM/102W strain of Marek's disease virus (MDV) with reticuloendotheliosis virus (REV) resulted in an REV long terminal repeat (LTR) being inserted into the internal repeat short (IRS) region of JM/102W. When the resulting recombinant virus was serially passed in cell culture, the initial LTR was duplicated and a second LTR spontaneously appeared in the terminal repeat short (TRS) region of the MDV genome. The virus, designated RM1, was significantly attenuated but still induced severe bursal and thymic atrophy (Isfort et al. PNAS 89:991-995). To determine whether the altered phenotype was due solely to the LTR, we cloned the LTR from the RM1 IRS region and inserted it into the IRS region of a very virulent bacterial artificial clone (BAC) of the Md5 strain of MDV, which we designated rMd5-RM1-LTR. During blind passage in duck embryo fibroblast cultures, the initial LTR in the rMd5-RM1-LTR was also duplicated, with LTRs appearing in both IRS and TRS regions of the MDV genome. The inserted LTR sequences and transcripts associated with the MDV open reading frames MDV085, MDV086, SORF2, US1, and US10 were molecularly characterized. The parental Md5 BAC contains a family of transcripts of 3, 2, and 1 kb that all terminate at the end of the US10 gene. The rMd5-RM1-LTR and RM1 viruses both express an additional 4 kb transcript that originates in the LTR and also terminates after US10. Collectively, the data suggest that our engineered rMd5-RM1-LTR virus very closely resembles the RM1 virus in its structure and transcription patterns.