Objective  To explore the role of G protein in rabies virus (RABV) replication, reveal the reason for the difference of virus titer in neuroblastoma (NA) cells between the recombinant RABV Hep-dG with dual copy of G gene and the parental strain rHep-Flury, and lay a foundation for the study of RABV pathogenesis.

Method  The effects of G protein over-expression on transcriptions ofIFN-β and related factors were examined by the virus binding assay, virus entry assay, fluorescence quantitative PCR, Western-blot and neutralizing antibody blocking assay.

Result  Hep-dG infection significantly increased the expression of IFN-β mRNA and activated the expression of the downstream factor STAT1 in NA cells. Under the low multiplicity of infection (MOI=0.01), the expression of IFN-β gene significantly increased at 24 h after Hep-dG infection and reached the highest level at 36 h. After the virus entered the cells, there were more viral Leader RNA and RIG-I mRNA, which were highly consistent with the expression of IFN-β mRNA. The block of IFN-β expression by neutralizing antibody in NA cells significantly increased the virus titer of Hep-dG in cell culture supernatant(P<0.01), which was 7.9 times before blocking. Meanwhile the virus titer of Hep-dG had no significant difference with the parental strain rHep-Flury. Compared with the negative control, transfection of 5 μg pH-G plasmid could stimulate the transcription ofIFN-β(P<0.05), which showed that eukaryotic expression of RABV G protein could stimulateIFN-β transcription to a certain extent.

Conclusion  This study preliminarily reveals the cause and role of G protein in activating innate immune response. Over-expression of RABV G protein activates the RIG-I-mediated IFN-β pathway by promoting transcription of the viral Leader RNA, which in turn inhibits Hep-dG replication in NA cells and finally results in the lower virus titer in NA cells.