Early steps in avian reovirus morphogenesis

Abstract

Avian reoviruses are important pathogens that may cause considerable economic losses in poultry farming. Their genome expresses at least eight structural and four nonstructural proteins, three of them encoded by the S1 gene. These viruses enter cells by receptor-mediated endocytosis, and acidification of virus-containing endosomes is necessary for the virus to uncoat and release transcriptionally active cores into the cytosol. Avian reoviruses replicate within cytoplasmic inclusions of globular morphology, termed viral factories, which are not microtubule-associated, and which are formed by the nonstructural protein muNS. This protein also mediates the association of some viral proteins (but not of others) with inclusions, suggesting that the recruitment of viral proteins into avian reovirus factories has specificity. Avian reovirus morphogenesis is a complex and temporally controlled process that takes place exclusively within viral factories of infected cells. Core assembly takes place within the first 30 min after the synthesis of their protein components, and fully formed cores are then coated by outer-capsid polypeptides over the next 30 min to generate mature infectious reovirions. Based on data from avian reovirus studies and on results reported for other members of the Reoviridae family, we present a model for avian reovirus gene expression and morphogenesis.