Resuscitating mutations in a furin cleavage-deficient mutant of the flavivirus tick-borne encephalitis virus

Cleavage of the viral surface protein prM by the proprotein convertase furin is a key step in the maturation process of flavivirus particles. A mutant of tick-borne encephalitis virus (TBEV) carrying a deletion mutation within the furin recognition motif of protein prM (changing R-T-R-R to R-T-R) was previously shown to be noninfectious in BHK-21 cells. We now demonstrate how natural selection can overcome this lethal defect in two different growth systems by distinct resuscitating mutations. In BHK-21 cells, a spontaneous codon duplication created a minimal furin cleavage motif (R-R-T-R). This mutation restored infectivity by enabling intracellular prM cleavage. A completely different mutation pattern was observed when the mutant virus was passaged in mouse brains. The "pr" part of protein prM, which is removed by cleavage, contains six conserved Cys residues. The mutations selected in mice changed the number of Cys residues to five or seven by substitution mutations near the original cleavage site, probably causing a major perturbation of the structural integrity of protein prM. Although viable in mice, such Cys mutants could not be passaged in BHK-21 cells under normal growth conditions (37 degrees C), but one of the mutants exhibited a low level of infectivity at a reduced incubation temperature (28 degrees C). No evidence for the cleavage of protein prM in BHK-21 cells was obtained. This suggests that under certain growth conditions, the structural perturbation of protein prM can restore the infectivity of TBEV by circumventing the need for intracellular furin-mediated cleavage. This is the first example of a flavivirus using such a molecular mechanism.