Cellular and biochemical differences between two attenuated poxvirus vaccine candidates (MVA and NYVAC) and role of the C7L gene.

The poxvirus strains NYVAC and MVA are two candidate vectors for the development of vaccines against a broad spectrum of diseases. Although these attenuated virus strains have proven to be safe in animals and humans, little is known about their comparative behavior in vitro. In contrast with MVA, NYVAC infection triggers greater cytopathic effect in a range of permissive and nonpermissive cell lines. The yields of NYVAC cell-associated virus in permissive cells (BHK-21) were slightly reduced compared with those of MVA infection. During the course of infection in HeLa cells, there is a translational block induced by NYVAC late in infection, which correlated with a marked increase in phosphorylation levels of the initiation factor eIF-2alpha. In contrast to MVA, the synthesis of certain late viral proteins was only blocked in NYVAC-infected HeLa cells. Electron microscopy (EM) analysis revealed that morphogenesis of NYVAC in HeLa cells was blocked at the stage of formation of immature viral forms. Phase-contrast microscopy, EM, flow cytometry, and rRNA analyses demonstrated that contrary to MVA, NYVAC infection induces potent apoptosis, a phenomenon dependent on activation of caspases and RNase L. Apoptosis induced by NYVAC was prevented when the virus gene C7L was placed back into the NYVAC genome, recovering the ability of NYVAC to replicate in HeLa cells and maintaining the attenuated phenotype in mice. Overall, our findings demonstrate distinct behavior between NYVAC and MVA strains in cultured cells, as well as a new role for the C7L viral gene as an inhibitor of apoptosis in NYVAC infection.