The classical swine fever virus (CSFV) particle consists of three glycoproteins, all of which have been shown to be important proteins involved in many virus functions, including interaction with several host proteins. One of these proteins, E2, has been shown to be directly involved with adsorption to the host cell and important for virus virulence. Using the yeast two-hybrid system, we have previously shown that CSFV E2 specifically interacts with the (DOCK7) dedicator of cytokinesis, a scaffolding protein. In this report, the interaction between E2 and DOCK7 was evaluated. To confirm the yeast two-hybrid results and to determine that DOCK7 interacts in swine cells with E2, we performed co-immunoprecipitation and proximity ligation assay (PLA). After demonstrating the protein interaction in swine cells, E2 amino acid residues Y65, V283, and T149 were determined to be critical for interaction with Dock7 by using a random mutated library of E2 and a reverse yeast two-hybrid approach. That disruption of these three residues with mutations Y65F, V283D, and T149A abrogated the Dock7-E2 protein interaction. These mutations were then introduced into a recombinant CSFV, E2DOCK7v, by a reverse genomics approach using the highly virulent CSFV Brescia isolate as a backbone. E2DOCKv was shown to have similar growth kinetics in swine primary macrophages and SK6 cell cultures to the parental Brescia strain. Similarly, E2DOCK7v demonstrated a similar level of virulence to the parental Brescia when inoculated in domestic pigs. Animals intranasally inoculated with 105 TCID50 developed a lethal form of clinical disease with virological and hematological kinetics changes indistinguishable from that produced by the parental strain. Therefore, interaction between CSFV E2 and host DOCK7 is not critically involved in the process of virus replication and disease production.
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