Functional domains of the envelope glycoprotein B of human cytomegalovirus

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Klaus Dietrich Radsak
• Subject Area: Virology
• Term: from 2002 to 2005
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 5396050

The glycoprotein B (gB) of human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) is a major determinant of viral infectivity and a target of the neutralizing immune response. Our interest is to understand better the functional structure of this viral envelope component which is a vaccine candidate. By use of various experimental approaches, including generations of viral mutants by the bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC) technique, we have studied the role of specific structural domains of this multifunctional protein during viral maturation. As an extension of this work the project outlined aims at the identification of HCMV-gB domains that participate in the fusion event during host cell entry of the virion. For this purpose a reporter gene fusion assay described previously, will be established under transfection conditions to define the effects of specific gB-mutations on the fusion event. The results obtained will serve for the construction of appropriate viral BAC mutants to investigate the consequences of the gB-mutations in the viral context. Our further interest concerns the role of (a) recently identified modular signal motif(s) in the HCMV-gB cytoplasmic tail. The aim here is to characterize potential nuclear receptors and elucidate the function of nuclear compartimentation of the gB-protein for the viral infectious cycle.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants