Ebola virus VP35 has novel NTPase and helicase-like activities

Shu, Ting; Gan, Tianyu; Bai, Peng; Wang, Xiaotong; Qian, Qi; Zhou, Hui; Cheng, Qi; Qiu, Yang; Yin, Lei; Zhong, Jin; Zhou, Xi

Of note, the minigenome replication/transcription seemed be more sensitive to GuHCl treatment than the biochemical activities of VP35. It is possible that because EBOV minigenomic RNA replication is a multi-round process, a slight inhibition in each round can result in an accumulated effect. Besides, when comparing with transiently transfected minigenome system, this stable EBOV minigenome replicon has been reported to show high level of active minigenome replication, and be relatively stable and even insensitive to IFN treatment or RNA interference, probably due to the persistent replication and the strong viral RNP stability of this minigenome (41) . Therefore, the inhibitory effect of GuHCl on the replication and transcription of EBOV minigenome is quite remarkable. In conclusion, our results show that GuHCl is able to inhibit the replication and transcription of the EBOV minigenome replicon in cultured human cells at the concentrations without apparent cytotoxicity.