Infectious salmon anemia virus (ISAV) is an orthomyxovirus causing serious disease in Atlantic salmon(Salmo salar L.). This study presents the characterization of the ISAV 50-kDa glycoprotein encoded by segment 5, here termed the viral membrane fusion protein (F). This is the first description of a separate orthomyxovirus F protein, and to our knowledge, the first pH-dependent separate viral F protein described. The ISAV F protein is synthesized as a precursor protein, F 0 , that is proteolytically cleaved to F 1 and F 2 , which are held together by disulfide bridges. The cleaved protein is in a metastable, fusion-activated state that can be triggered by low pH, high temperature, or a high concentration of urea. Cell-cell fusion can be initiated by treatment with trypsin and low pH of ISAV-infected cells and of transfected cells expressing F, although the coexpression of ISAV HE significantly improves fusion. Fusion is initiated at pH 5.4 to 5.6, and the fusion process is coincident with the trimerization of the F protein, or most likely a stabilization of the trimer, suggesting that it represents the formation of the fusogenic structure. Exposure to trypsin and a low pH prior to infection inactivated the virus, demonstrating the nonreversibility of this conformational change. Sequence analyses identified a potential coiled coil and a fusion peptide. Size estimates of F 1 and F 2 and the localization of the putative fusion peptide and theoretical trypsin cleavage sites suggest that the proteolytic cleavage site is after residue K 276 in the protein sequence.
Infectious salmon anemia virus (ISAV) is an enveloped virusbelonging to the family Orthomyxoviridae and the genus Isavirus, and it causes serious disease in Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar L.) (51,58,68,71,80). The ISAV genome is composed of eight negative-sense, single-stranded RNA segments, and while nucleotide sequences of all segments have been published (9,43,44,56,66,67,74,75), much remains to be elucidated with respect to protein identification and characterization. A total of 12 proteins have been detected by immunoprecipitation of lysates from radiolabeled infected cells (40), while four major structural proteins have been recognized in purified ISAV particles, including the matrix (M1; 22 to 24 kDa) (7, 24), the nucleoprotein (NP; 66 to 71 kDa) (3, 24), and two membrane glycoproteins (24). The receptor-binding and receptor-destroying activities are associated with the 42-kDa glycoprotein encoded by segment 6, termed the hemagglutininesterase (HE) (24,25,34,42,43,66), while the activities of the second glycoprotein, glycoprotein 50 (gp50), encoded by segment 5 (9), have not been described previously.ISAV pursues a nuclear replication strategy similar to that of the influenza viruses (3, 26) which is initiated by receptor binding and internalization into cellular endosomes, where the viral and cellular membranes fuse in response to low pH (21). The addition of trypsin to the culture medium during ISAV replication has been demonstrated to have a benefici...