Herpesvirus glycoprotein synthesis and insertion into plasma membranes.

In the presence of the antibiotic tunicamycin (TM), glycosylation of herpes simplex virus glycoproteins is inhibited and non-glycosylated polypeptides analogous to the glycoproteins are synthesized (Pizer et al., J. Virol. 34:142-153, 1980). The synthesis of viral proteins and DNA occurs in TM-treated cells. By electron microscopy, nucleocapsids can be observed both in the nucleus and the cytoplasm of TM-treated cells; a small number of enveloped virions were observed on the cell surface. Analyses of the proteins in partially purified virus readily detects viral glycoproteins in the control cells, but neither glycoproteins nor nonglycosylated polypeptide analogs were observed in the virus prepared from TM-treated cells. By labeling the surface of infected cells with 125I, viral glycoproteins were detected as soon as 90 min after infection even when protein synthesis was inhibited with cycloheximide and glycosylation was blocked with TM. Labeling the proteins synthesized in infected cells with [35S]methionine showed that the surface glycoproteins detected in the cycloheximide- and TM-treated cells were not synthesized de novo after infection, but were placed on the cell surface by the infecting virus. Studies with metabolic inhibitors and a temperature-sensitive mutant blocked early in the infectious cycle showed that glycoproteins gA/gB and gD were synthesized soon after infection, but that the synthesis of gC was delayed. Under conditions of infection, in which gC and its precursor pgC are not produced, we have been able to observe the relationships between the glycosylated polypeptides that correspond to pgA/pgB and the nonglycosylated analog made in the presence of TM.