Cloning of Brazilian Zika Virus Genome and Expression of its Proteins

Abstract

Zika Virus (ZIKV) is an emerging mosquito borne arbovirus which transmits through bite of Aedes aegypti. ZIKV belongs to genus Flavivirus, family Flaviviridae and has a positive strand RNA genome of 10.8kb. It was first described in 1947 and became a health emergency in February 2016 when it was linked to increased fetal microcephaly cases in United States which was confirmed by Center of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). ZIKV has been documented in 66 countries encompassing the regions of Asia, Africa and States. It is recognized as a neurotropic virus with several manifestations of the disease. Currently there is no effective treatment available with no useful insights into the molecular mechanisms of this virus. Therefore, the current study was designed to address the cloning of fragments of ZIKV and expression of its proteins in U2OS cells. Parts of Zika Virus encoding for individual proteins were amplified and cloned in eukaryotic expression vectors. Individual ZIKV proteins were expressed in U2OS cells along with their characterization and expression by western blotting and immune-fluorescence analysis.