The current study has described features of co-infections in vitro with H5N1-pseudo lentiviruses, containing two different reporter genes: eGFP (H5N1-eGFP-plv) and mCherry (H5N1-mCherry-plv. These plvs express HA (hemagglutinin) and NA (neuraminidase), originated from influenza virus strains A/Thailand/KAN-1/04(H5N1) and A/Russia/01/2009(H1N1), respectively. Cells (MCF-7 and U87-MG) were inoculated either individually with H5N1-mCherry-plv and H5N1-eGFP-plv (mono infection) or in their combination (co-infection). The infection rates of cells after 5 days of inoculation with co-infection were lower than those with mono-infections. Furthermore co-infection occurred less frequently than predicted based on random events of infection. These data indicate the presence of viral interference when cells are infected with H5N1-pseudo typed lentiviruses at the stage of adsorption/entry of pseudo lentiviruses, into the cell.

However, when cells were infected at + 4°C (under conditions with the inhibited NA), the infection rates of co-transduced cells was near a random distribution, suggesting the important role of NA in the viral interference.

In addition, we evaluated the effect of 2 pseudo lentiviruses, containing shRNA target sequences against Phosphodiesterase 7A (PDE7A) gene, with various surface proteins (H5N1 — from influenza A virus and G — from vesicular stomatitis virus) on viability of MCF-7 cells. These pseudo lentiviruses, significantly increased cellʼ viability in a dose-dependent manner. Notably, the increment of viability was much slower in case of the H5N1-pseudo lentiviruses, These findings further support the existence of H5N1-pseudo lentiviruses, interference.

Disclaimer: This work has been supported by Russian Scientific Foundation grant 17-15-01294.

Biography:
Anna S. Kolyasnikova was graduated in Zelman Institute for the Medicine and Psychology, Novosibirsk State University, Russia.