Advances in the functions of African swine fever virus-encoded proteins

Abstract:

African swine fever (ASF) is an acute, hemorrhagic and severe infectious disease caused by African swine fever virus (ASFV) in domestic or wild pigs, which is characterized by short course, high fever and hemorrhagic lesions as well as 100% mortality rate of acute infection. So far, there is no effective vaccine available for ASF. ASFV is a large, double stranded DNA virus and the only member of the Asfarviridae family, Asfivirus genus, which replicates predominantly in the cytoplasm of macrophages. The genome of ASFV ranges in length from 170 to 193 kb depending on the isolate and contains 150 to 167 open reading frames (ORFs), encoding 150 to 200 proteins. However, only about 50 encoded proteins are functionally known and most of them are viral structure proteins. In addition to structure proteins, ASFV also have a full complement of enzymes and factors or other nonstructural proteins that are involved in regulation of the viral transcription, viral DNA repair, viral invasion of host cells, and viral-mediated modification of host cell function and evasion from host defense. In this review, we summarize the current knowledge of functions of ASFV-encoded proteins and anticipate to provide valuable information for future study and vaccine development.