Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2004 Jul;73(3):323-31.
doi: 10.1002/jmv.20094.

SARS coronavirus induces apoptosis in Vero E6 cells

Affiliations

SARS coronavirus induces apoptosis in Vero E6 cells

Huimin Yan et al. J Med Virol. 2004 Jul.

Abstract

Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is an emerging infectious disease. Its etiological agent has been convincingly identified as a new member of family Coronaviridae (SARS-CoV). It causes serious damage to the respiratory system yet the mechanism is not clear. Infection-induced apoptosis or necrosis is suspected but no direct evidence for this yet exists. To date, Vero E6 cells are the only cell line that could be used to replicate the virus with obvious CPE (cytopathic effect) in vitro. It is known for some viruses (including members of family Coronaviridae) that CPE can be caused either by virus-induced apoptosis (active death) or cell necrosis (passive death). In this study, we examined the apoptosis in the SARS-CoV infected Vero E6 cells. Indeed, the results do show that the CPE was induced by apoptosis rather than necrosis, shown by typical DNA fragmentation, through the existence of apoptotic bodies and swollen mitochondria. This observation has some implications for the SARS-CoV pathogenicity: SARS-CoV does induce apoptosis in cell cultures and might have the same effect in vivo, responsible for the severe damage of the respiratory system.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Aleman N, Quiroga MI, Lopez‐Pena M, Vazquez S, Guerrero FH, Nieto JM. 2001. Induction and inhibition of apoptosis by pseudorabies virus in the trigeminal ganglion during acute infection of swine. J Virol 75: 469–479. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Aubert M, Blaho JA. 2003. Viral oncoapoptosis of human tumor cells. Gene Ther 10: 1437–1445. - PubMed
    1. Brydon EW, Smith H, Sweet C. 2003. Influenza A virus‐induced apoptosis in bronchiolar epithelial (NCI‐H292) cells limits pro‐inflammatory cytokine release. J Gen Virol 84: 2389–2400. - PubMed
    1. Clarke P, Tyler KL. 2003. Reovirus‐induced apoptosis: A minireview. Apoptosis 8: 141–150. - PubMed
    1. Cuconati A, White E. 2002. Viral homologs of BCL‐2: Role of apoptosis in the regulation of virus infection. Genes Dev 16: 2465–2478. - PubMed

Publication types