@article{mbs:/content/journal/jgv/10.1099/jgv.0.000005, author = "Acrani, Gustavo Olszanski and Tilston-Lunel, Natasha L. and Spiegel, Martin and Weidmann, Manfred and Dilcher, Meik and Andrade da Silva, Daisy Elaine and Nunes, Marcio R. T. and Elliott, Richard M.", title = "Establishment of a minigenome system for Oropouche virus reveals the S genome segment to be significantly longer than reported previously", journal= "Journal of General Virology", year = "2015", volume = "96", number = "3", pages = "513-523", doi = "https://doi.org/10.1099/jgv.0.000005", url = "https://www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/journal/jgv/10.1099/jgv.0.000005", publisher = "Microbiology Society", issn = "1465-2099", type = "Journal Article", abstract = "Oropouche virus (OROV) is a medically important orthobunyavirus, which causes frequent outbreaks of a febrile illness in the northern parts of Brazil. However, despite being the cause of an estimated half a million human infections since its first isolation in Trinidad in 1955, details of the molecular biology of this tripartite, negative-sense RNA virus remain limited. We have determined the complete nucleotide sequence of the Brazilian prototype strain of OROV, BeAn 19991, and found a number of differences compared with sequences in the database. Most notable were that the S segment contained an additional 204 nt at the 3′ end and that there was a critical nucleotide mismatch at position 9 within the base-paired terminal panhandle structure of each genome segment. In addition, we obtained the complete sequence of the Trinidadian prototype strain TRVL-9760 that showed similar characteristics to the BeAn 19991 strain. By using a T7 RNA polymerase-driven minigenome system, we demonstrated that cDNA clones of the BeAn 19991 L and S segments expressed functional proteins, and also that the newly determined terminal untranslated sequences acted as functional promoters in the minigenome assay. By co-transfecting a cDNA to the viral glycoproteins, virus-like particles were generated that packaged a minigenome and were capable of infecting naive cells.", }