Murine gammaherpesvirus 68 glycoprotein 150 does not contribute to latency amplification in vivo

To further develop MHV-68 as model to study the function of gammaherpesvirus glycoproteins in vivo, it is important to know whether gp150 contributes to latency amplification or not. Thus, we re-evaluated this question by testing a number of gp150 mutants side by side. Our results suggest that gp150 is dispensable for latency amplification. Furthermore, we investigated the effect of vaccination with gp150 using gp150-containing exosomes. Vaccination with gp150 induced a strong humoral and cellular immune response, yet it did not affect a subsequent MHV-68 challenge infection.In this study, we found no evidence for a role of gp150 in latency amplification. The previously observed contradictory results on the role of gp150 in latency amplification were not related to differences between the mutant viruses which had been used.