Bioinformatics Analysis of the Envelope Glycoprotein and Construction of Infectious RNA Transcripts of Dengue Virus

The efficient tetravalent vaccine is urgently needed to provide long-term and all-round immunity against dengue virus. In order to construct the tetravalent attenuated vaccine, the well defined B-cell and T-cell epitopes of the glycoprotein of the DEN-1 HAWAII strain were predicted and analyzed by using network servers. The long RT-PCR was established to amplify the cDNA of DEN-2 NGC strain for constructing infectious dengue virus clone.Furthermore, the infectious transcript technology was utilized, using cDNAs as templates, the viral RNA could be transcribed in vitro, and the experiment on its infectivity was carried out. Our results showed that the dengue virus -specific RNA fragment could be detected from infected mice brain and cells, and the virion could be observed. To lay a foundation for the development of the protective tetravalent vaccine, further studies are needed for the construction of a chimeric virus by using the B- and T-cell epitopes of the glycoprotein.