Murine cytomegalovirus with a deletion of genes spanning HindIII-J and -I displays altered cell and tissue tropism

Murine cytomegalovirus (MCMV) gene products dispensable for growth in cell culture are likely to have important functions within the infected host, influencing tissue tropism, dissemination, or immunological responses against the virus. To identify such genes, our strategy was to delete large regions of the MCMV genome likely to contain genes nonessential for virus replication in NIH 3T3 cells. Mutant virus RV7 contained a deletion of 7.7 kb spanning portions of MCMV HindIII-J and -I. This virus grew comparably to wild-type (WT) virus in NIH 3T3 fibroblasts, primary embryo fibroblasts, and bone marrow macrophages. However, RV7 failed to replicate in target organs of immunocompetent BALB/c mice and severe combined immunodeficient mice, which are exquisitely sensitive to MCMV infection. This defect in in vivo growth may be related to the observation that RV7 grew poorly in the peritoneal macrophage cell line IC-21, which is highly permissive for growth of WT MCMV. Two other mutant viruses with an insertion or smaller deletion in the region common to the RV7 deletion grew comparably to WT virus in the macrophage cell line and replicated in salivary gland tissue. The poor growth of RV7 in IC-21 cells was due to a block in immediate-early gene expression, as levels of RNA from immediate-early gene IE1 were reduced eightfold compared with levels for WT virus in macrophages infected with RV7. Consequently, levels of RNA from early and late genes were also reduced. The lower expression of IE1 in RV7-infected IC-21 macrophages was not due to defective entry of virus into the cells,as equal amounts of viral DNA were present in cells 3 h after infection with RV7 or WT MCMV. These studies demonstrate that deletion of sequences in HindIII-J and -I confer altered cell and tissue tropism.