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Review
. 2020 Feb 4;9(2):94.
doi: 10.3390/pathogens9020094.

The Infectious Pancreatic Necrosis Virus (IPNV) and its Virulence Determinants: What is Known and What Should be Known

Carlos P Dopazo  1
Affiliations
Review

The Infectious Pancreatic Necrosis Virus (IPNV) and its Virulence Determinants: What is Known and What Should be Known

Carlos P Dopazo. Pathogens. .

Abstract

Infectious pancreatic necrosis (IPN) is a disease of great concern in aquaculture, mainly among salmonid farmers, since losses in salmonid fish-mostly very young rainbow trout (Salmo gairdnery) fry and Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) post-smolt-frequently reach 80-90% of stocks. The virus causing the typical signs of the IPN disease in salmonids, named infectious pancreatic necrosis virus (IPNV), has also been isolated from other fish species either suffering related diseases (then named IPNV-like virus) or asymptomatic; the general term aquabirnavirus is used to encompass all these viruses. Aquabirnaviruses are non-enveloped, icosahedral bisegmented dsRNA viruses, whose genome codifies five viral proteins, three of which are structural, and one of them is an RNA-dependent RNA polymerase. Due to the great importance of the disease, there have been great efforts to find a way to predict the level of virulence of IPNV isolates. The viral genome and proteins have been the main focus of research. However, to date such a reliable magic marker has not been discovered. This review describes the processes followed for decades in the attempts to discover the viral determinants of virulence, and to help the reader understand how viral components can be involved in virulence modulation in vitro and in vivo. There is also a brief description of the disease, of host defenses, and of the molecular structure and function of the virus and its viral components.

Keywords: IPNV; virulence.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Genome organization and expression.
Figure 2
Figure 2
General structure and organization of the VP2 protein in infectious pancreatic necrosis virus (IPNV). (A) VP2 is structurally constituted by three domains: a central one (blue), which in subviral particles (SVPs) constitutes the shell (see panel (B)) and is named before that (S); the base (B; green), which is located in the inner side of the particle, and the spike or projection (P, red), on the other side. (B) Structural organization of VP2 in SVPs. (C) Trimeric organization of the spikes. (D) Organization of the VP2 units around the 5-fold axis. (Adapted from Caulibaly et al. [28]).
Figure 3
Figure 3
VP2 epitopes and variable region map.
Figure 4
Figure 4
VP5 protein open reading frame (ORF).
Figure 5
Figure 5
Factors modulating virulence of the IPN disease (Adapted from Snieszko [77]).
Figure 6
Figure 6
IPNV virulence determinants in VP2.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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