Quantitative evaluation of viral fitness due to a single nucleotide polymorphism in the Marek's disease virus UL41 gene via an in vitro competition assay

Marek's disease, a T cell lymphoma, is an economically important disease of poultry caused by the Marek's disease virus (MDV), a highly cell-associated alphaherpesvirus. A greater understanding of viral gene function and the contribution of sequence variation to virulence should facilitate efforts to control Marek's disease in chickens. To characterize a naturally occurring single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP; AY510475:g.108,206C > T) in the MDV UL41 gene that results in a missense mutation (AAS01683:p.Arg377Cys), bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC)-derived MDVs that differed only in the UL41 SNP were evaluated using a head-to-head competition assay in vitro. Monitoring the frequency of each SNP by pyrosequencing during virus passage determined the ratio of each viral genome in a single monolayer, which is a very sensitive method to monitor viral fitness. MDV with the UL41*Cys allele showed enhanced fitness in vitro. To evaluate the mechanism of altered viral fitness caused by this SNP, the virion-associated host shutoff (vhs) activity of both UL41 alleles was determined. The UL41*Cys allele had no vhs activity, which suggests that enhanced fitness in vitro for MDV with inactive vhs was due to reduced degradation of viral transcripts. The in vitro competition assay should be applicable to other MDV genes and mutations.