Cloning and expression of NS3 gene of Pakistani isolate type 2 dengue virus
Published Online: Mar 30, 2018
Page range: 17 - 26
Received: Sep 19, 2017
Accepted: Mar 08, 2018
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/jvetres-2018-0003
Keywords
© 2018 F. Yasmin et al., published by Sciendo
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.
Introduction
Dengue is one of the major emerging viral diseases in the world, with dramatic increases in reported cases in the last few decades and annual worldwide occurrence of approximately 390 million infections. It is a highly important mosquito-vectored disease and is a problem in tropical and subtropical areas of the world. The major aim of this study was to clone and express the dengue NS3 gene, in service to its therapeutic importance for the development of stable cell lines.
Material and Methods
Blood samples from dengue fever (DF) patients were collected and subjected to PCR amplification of the NS3 gene of dengue virus serotype-2 (DENV-2). The NS3 gene was amplified using gene specific primers and cloned in the TA cloning vectors.
Results
The gene was successfully expressed in mammalian expression vector pcDNA3.1. The current finding was different from a previously reported DENV-2 strain replicon constructed in different cells, in which the whole genetic material of the virus was used instead of an active protease gene, and which gave a low yield of replicon expressing cells.
Conclusion
Recombinant NS3 could be used to produce an antibody that is possibly helpful for developing a single step diagnostic assay to detect the dengue virus NS3 antigen in sera of dengue patients.