NS1= is a C-terminally extended form of the NS1 protein produced only by encephalitic flaviviruses from the Japanese encephalitis virus serogroup. Here we show that West Nile virus (WNV) NS1= and NS1 localize to the same cellular compartments when expressed from plasmid DNAs and also colocalize to viral RNA replication sites in infected cells. Using complementation analysis with NS1-deleted WNV cDNA, we demonstrated that NS1= is able to substitute for the crucial function of NS1 in virus replication.
West Nile virus (WNV) is a mosquito-borne flavivirus within the Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV) serogroup. This serogroup also includes other encephalitic flaviviruses, such as JEV, Murray Valley encephalitis virus, and St. Louis encephalitis virus (1). The natural transmission cycle of WNV is between birds and mosquitoes, primarily the Culex species; however, it can cause incidental infections in humans. Since the outbreak of the more pathogenic WNV NY99 strain in New York in 1999 (2), WNV has emerged as a major cause of arboviral encephalitis in the United States (3). WNV strains can be divided into two distinct lineages, lineage 1 and lineage 2. Lineage 1 includes both WNV NY99 and Kunjin (WNV KUN ) (4), the prevalent strain within Australia (5). Despite high sequence similarity to the WNV NY99 strain (ϳ98% on the amino acid level) (6), most WNV KUN strains are highly attenuated, with only a small number of human infections and no fatalities reported (5, 7). Since its isolation in early 1960s, WNV KUN has been used extensively as a model for WNV infection (8, 9).The WNV KUN genome is a single-stranded positive-sense RNA of 11,022 nucleotides (10-12). After translation as a single polyprotein, it is cleaved by host and viral proteases to produce 3 structural (C, prM, and E) and 7 nonstructural (NS1, NS2A, NS2B, NS3, NS4A, NS4B, and NS5) proteins (11,12). NS1 is a multifunctional glycoprotein that is involved in viral replication (13-16) and modulation of the immune response (17-22). The key role NS1 plays in RNA replication has been shown previously, with mutations or deletions in the NS1 gene resulting in a lack of detectable RNA replication. This function can be complemented in trans by the expression of NS1 (14, 15).An additional nonstructural protein, NS1=, is produced exclusively by the members of the JEV serogroup due to the presence of a Ϫ1 programmed ribosomal frameshift at the beginning of the adjacent NS2A gene (23)(24)(25). This frameshift, occurring in 30 to 50% of translation events (23,26), results in the formation of a 52-amino-acid C-terminally extended form of NS1. Although a role in neurovirulence has previously been demonstrated (23), no specific functions for NS1= in viral replication or virus-host interactions have been identified. In the present study, we show that the NS1= protein colocalizes with NS1 in viral RNA replication sites in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) of infected cells and can substitute for the function of NS1 in viral replication.Plasmid DNA-derived expression of NS1 and NS...