African swine fever virus gene A179L, a viral homologue of bcl-2, protects cells from programmed cell death

Abstract

The African swine fever virus (ASFV) open reading frame A179L, which is similar to the human proto-oncogene bcl-2, has been cloned and expressed in vaccinia virus under control of the pEIL synthetic early/late promoter. The A179L gene product prevented cell death in HeLa and BSC-40 cells doubly infected with another recombinant vaccinia virus expressing the interferon-induced double-stranded RNA-activated protein kinase (p68 kinase), which activates a rapid cell death characteristic of apoptosis. This finding suggests that the A179L gene has a function similar to that of bcl-2 in preventing apoptosis and may play an important role during productive ASFV infection.