Two Cholesterol Recognition Amino Acid Consensus Motifs of GP64 with Uncleaved Signal Peptide Are Required for Bombyx mori Nucleopolyhedrovirus Infection
Bifang Hao, Wenbin Nan, Ying Xu, Lin Liu, Na Liu, Jinshan Huang
Abstract
BmNPV is a severe pathogen that mainly infects silkworms. GP64 is the key membrane fusion protein that mediates BmNPV infection, and some studies have indicated that cholesterol and lipids are involved in BmNPV infection. A remarkable difference from other membrane fusion proteins is that BmNPV GP64 retains its SP in the mature protein, but the cause is still unclear. In this study, we investigated the reason why BmNPV retains this SP, and its effects on protein targeting, virulence, and CRAC dependence were revealed by comparison of recombinant viruses harboring SP-cleaved or uncleaved GP64. Our study provides a basis for understanding the dependence of BmNPV infection on cholesterol/lipids and host specificity.