Аннотация:Tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) is an emerging zoonosis that may cause long-term neurological
sequelae or even death. Thus, there is a growing interest in understanding the factors of
TBE pathogenesis. Viral genetic determinants may greatly affect the severity and consequences of
TBE. In this study, nonstructural protein 1 (NS1) of the tick-borne encephalitis virus (TBEV) was
tested as such a determinant. NS1s of three strains with similar neuroinvasiveness belonging to the
European, Siberian and Far-Eastern subtypes of TBEV were studied. Transfection of mouse cells with
plasmids encoding NS1 of the three TBEV subtypes led to different levels of NS1 protein accumulation
in and secretion from the cells. NS1s of TBEV were able to trigger cytokine production either in
isolated mouse splenocytes or in mice after delivery of NS1 encoding plasmids. The profile and
dynamics of TNF-, IL-6, IL-10 and IFN-
differed between the strains. These results demonstrated
the involvement of TBEV NS1 in triggering an immune response and indicated the diversity of NS1
as one of the genetic factors of TBEV pathogenicity.