Introduction
Newcastle disease virus is a negative-stranded RNA virus belonging to the family of
Paramyxoviridae of the genus
Avulavirus. Its high preference to infect cancer cells [
1] have made it as one of the widely studied candidate agent for oncolytic virotherapies. Due to its promising potential, NDV strains NDV-HUJ, PV701, MTH-68/H and NV1020 are now being tested as cancer therapeutics in clinical trials [
2‐
4]. Despite their promising preclinical findings [
4], further advancement in the clinical use of NDV is still debatable even though their mechanistic insights are well studied [reviewed in 4]. The risks involved in using viruses as therapeutic agents include problems with mutant viruses having increased pathogenic properties [
5] and potential development of persistent infections [
6].
Viruses have the ability to establish a persistent infection in host cells. This type of infection may exist in the forms of silent or productive infections [
6]. Cells, which have been persistently infected by viruses, remained viable in the forms of latent, chronic or slow infections [
6]. The ability of enveloped negative strand RNA viruses such as arboviruses, paramyxoviruses, vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) and rabies virus to develop persistent infections in host cells has been well documented [
7‐
10]. The forms of ‘incomplete’ viruses [
10‐
12] involved in these persistent infections were referred to as defective interfering particles (DIPs). For oncolytic viruses, development of persistent infections can lead to reduced virus-induced cytotoxicity [
13]. It can also create populations of cells that have reduced permissiveness to wild-type viruses [
10‐
13]. This phenomenon was previously reported for the oncolytic reovirus, where wild type reovirus cause reduced infection in persistently infected cells [
14].
Development of persistent infections by NDV was first reported in the late 60s and early 70s [
7‐
13]. These studies, however, only reported the occurrence of persistent infections in normal cells. Since NDV has shown great potential as an anticancer agent in clinical studies [
2,
3,
15,
16], detailed information regarding their involvement in persistent infection in cancer cells is imperative. Thus far, occurrence of persistent infection in cancer cells by a velogenic strain of NDV has not been described, even though its establishment in normal cells had been reported [
8‐
12]. Therefore, in the present study, we reported the development of persistent infection by NDV in a subpopulation of SW480 colon cancer cells. These findings contribute additional data needed in the tailoring of NDV, particularly of a velogenic strain, as oncolytic virotherapy agent in clinical settings.
Discussion
Development of persistent infection by oncolytic viruses may interfere with their efficacy as anticancer agents. This form of infection in target cells can affect wild type virus tropism as well as the cells permissiveness to reinfection [
1]. It also caused a decrease in virus-induced cytotoxicity [
13,
20]. Data on the occurrence of persistent infections by a number of oncolytic viruses, such as Reovirus, Vesicular stomatis virus (VSV), measles, adenovirus and herpes simplex virus (HSV) were previously reported [
20‐
24]. Up to now, there has been no report on the relationship of velogenic strain of NDV and persistent infection in cancer cells, despite the fact that the lentogenic strain of the virus is now in phases 1 and 2 clinical trials [
4]. Development of persistent infection by NDV in normal cells, on the other hand, had also been well studied in normal cells [
8‐
12], but not in cancer cells.
In the present study, we observed that a viscerotropic-velogenic strain of NDV [
25] was able to develop persistent infection in a type of CRC cells, specifically the SW480 cell line. No such infection was observed in the other CRC cell lines tested. Further investigation into the contribution of genotypic differences among the cell lines towards NDV susceptibility and infection outcome are currently being investigated in our laboratory. The persistently-infected cells designated as SW480P, arose from a small subpopulation of cells which survived the primary round of NDV infection. SW480 cell line was also shown to be susceptible to cytolysis by other oncolytic viruses such as echoviruses [
26]. This observation supports our data of the existence of persistently infected SW480 cells by NDV.
Persistent infection can be divided into latent, chronic, and slow infections [
6]; each with its own unique characteristics that influence cellular changes. The lack of morphological changes in the SW480P versus SW480 cells, as well as the presence of viral NP proteins in almost all of the SW480P cells, were strongly suggestive of a slow type of persistent infection [
6]. The absence of cell death, the occurrence of infectious virus secretion and the high fraction of antigen-positive cells in SW480P narrowed down the infection to a chronic diffuse type of persistent infection.
Previously, a plaque assay using media from persistently infected normal mouse cells on chicken embryonic fibroblasts also showed the formation of smaller plaques [
10]. Even though the host cells were different in the assays, their data supported our observation that NDV can cause persistent infection. In the current study, we observed the occurence of a persistent infection in cancer cells. Such observation has not been previously reported in NDV infections.
These findings suggest that even though SW480P maintains a low level of productive NDV infection, they themselves are still susceptible to infection by the wild type NDV. On another note, the progeny virus, the mNDV, secreted by the SW480P cells retained their infectivity, hence they were unlikely to be in the form of DIPs per se. The DIPs are characterized by their inability to infect cells on their own due to large genetic mutations [
27]. This mNDV virus was also able to infect another colorectal cancer cell line, HT29 [
19] albeit at lower cytotoxicity. This suggested that the mNDV maintained its infectivity in other cancer cells besides the parental cells.
The fact that NDV was able to establish persistent infection in SW480 cells, but not in other cell lines tested, highlighted the specificity of either the mechanism of NDV infection in SW480 cells or the cells’ responses to the infection. To the best of our knowledge, until now only the lentogenic strains of NDV were evaluated in clinical studies [
18]. This might be due to the specific regulations by the World Organization for Animal Health on the use of notifiable diseases and viruses with velogenic properties. Further investigation into the pathogenesis and oncolytic properties of the viscerotropic-velogenic strain of NDV, such as the one used in the study, would add to the understanding of their detail mechanistic actions. These data would contribute towards tailoring of velogenic NDV specificity in the clinical settings.
Materials and methods
NDV propagation
A viscerotropic-velogenic NDV strain AF2240 [
25] was propagated in 9-day-old embryonated chicken eggs as previously described [
28]. After 48 h of incubation, the infected allantoic fluid was harvested and clarified by centrifugation at 5000 ×
g. Virus was purified using a sucrose gradient centrifugation at concentrations of 20 to 60% at 200,000 ×
g for 4 h. A band observed around the middle of the gradient, which represented the concentrated virus, was pipetted and diluted with 1 × PBS (Sigma) followed by another centrifugation at 200,000 ×
g for 4 h. The resulting pure virus pellet was resuspended with 1 × PBS, aliquoted and kept in -80°C until used. NDV is endemic in Malaysia and categorized as a BSL2 pathogen based on NIH, US and Japan guidelines [
29,
30].
All experiments were performed in BSL2 biosafety cabinet. Extra precautions were taken to ensure there was not leakage of the virus to the environment. Waste and all instruments were sterilized and decontaminated after use.
Cell lines and infection by NDV
CRC cell lines; SW620, SW480, DLD-1, Dks8, HCT116p53
+/+, HCT116p53
-/-, and HT29, were generous gifts from Prof. Eric J. Stanbridge, University of California, Irvine, USA. Cells were maintained in RPMI1640 media (PAA, Austria) supplemented with 10% (v/v) fetal bovine serum (FBS; PAA, Austria). For infection, cells were seeded for overnight followed by infection with NDV [
18] at a 2.0 MOI. Cell viability was determined using the trypan blue exclusion assay. Experiments were repeated at least twice and a representative of the replicates was presented.
Rescue of viable cells following NDV infection
After 96 h of infection, media containing floating cells were removed. Fresh growth media was added to the remaining attached cells. Cells were incubated for approximately two weeks with an addition of 4 ml of fresh growth media every 3 days. The surviving cells were then trypsinized and sub-cultured into new tissue culture flasks. For a re-infection experiment, the recovered cells were seeded and infected as described in the infection procedure above. Confirmation of NDV infection was performed using RT-PCR and immunofluorescent staining. Virus infectivity was quantitated using the plaque assay method [
18].
RT-PCR
Total RNA samples were harvested using the TriReagent (Invitrogen, USA) following the manufacturer’s protocols. First strand cDNA was then synthesized using the Reverse Transcription System (Promega) in a thermal cycler (MJ Research Inc. USA). Forward (5′- AAT GAA TTC TG ATG TCT TCC GTA TTC GAT G -3′) and reverse (5′-AAT CTC GAG C TCA ATA CCC CCA GTC GGT GT -3′) primers were used to amplify the NDV NP gene using 30 PCR cycles. The conditions were 94°C for 30 s, 55°C for 1 min, and 72°C for 1.5 min, followed by a final extension step of 72°C for 7 min. The resulting PCR product was electrophoresed, stained with ethidium bromide and viewed with a Gel Documentation Imaging System (BioRad, USA).
Immunofluorescent detection of NDV NP protein
Infected cells on cover slips were washed with 1 × PBS and fixed with 4% paraformaldehyde, followed by permeabilization with 0.1% Triton-X 100 for 10 min. All dilutions of reagents were performed in PBS. After blocking with 1% BSA, cells were probed with a primary monoclonal antibody against the NP protein of NDV [
31] for overnight. The bound antibody was then detected with an FITC-conjugated secondary antibody (Santa Cruz Biotechnology, sc-2010) and counterstained with propidium iodide. Samples were then visualized using a fluorescent microscope (DFC420C, Leica) and images were captured using a DM2500 (Leica) camera.
Statistical analysis
Student’s t-test was used to analyze the experimental data throughout the study. Results were expressed as mean ± standard error of the mean of at least two independent experiments. Statistical significance was defined as p-value < 0.05. All the tests were performed using Windows Microsoft Excel 2010 (Microsoft Corporation, Seattle, WA).
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the Malaysian Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation grants no. 02-01-04-SF1269, 07-05-MGI-GMB013, and Ministry of Education grants no. ERGS/1-2012/5527077. SLC is supported by the Graduate Research Fellowship of the Universiti Putra Malaysia. We acknowledge Prof Eric J Stanbridge for his comments and suggestions during the study.
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made.
The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.
Competing interests
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
Authors’ contributions
NS, KY designed this study and revised the manuscript critically; SLC carried out this study and drafted the manuscript. All of the authors read and approved the final version of this manuscript.