The Spike Protein of Transmissible Gastroenteritis Coronavirus Controls the Tropism of Pseudorecombinant Virions Engineered Using Synthetic Minigenomes

The minimum sequence required for the replication and packaging of transmissible gastroenteritis virus (TGEV)-derived minigenomes has been determined. To this end, cDNAs encoding defective RNAs have been cloned and used to express heterologous spike proteins, to determine the influence of the peplomer protein in the control of TGEV tropism.