Increased infectivity of human cytomegalovirus strain TB40/E conferred by variants of the envelope glycoprotein UL128 and the regulatory protein IE2

Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) infects various cell types in its human host, and this broad tropism plays a vital role in viral transmission, dissemination, and pathogenesis. HCMV strains differ in their ability to infect and replicate in different cell types, but the genetic determinants of cell tropism have only begun to be understood. A widely used HCMV strain, TB40/E, contains a mixture of genetically distinct virus variants. Only a few passages in ARPE-19 epithelial cells resulted in the selective enrichment of a substrain, termed TB40/EE, which infected epithelial cells more efficiently than the parental TB40/E and induced the formation of large multinucleated syncytia. Herein, we used sequence comparison and genetic engineering of a TB40/E-derived bacterial artificial chromosome clone, TB40-BAC4, to demonstrate that the high infectivity of TB40/EE and its ability to induce syncytia in epithelial cells depend on two single-nucleotide variants (SNVs) affecting the envelope glycoprotein UL128 and the major viral transactivator protein, IE2. While the intronic SNV in UL128 increased splicing of the <i>UL128</i> transcript, it surprisingly decreased viral infectivity and replication in epithelial cells. The additional introduction of the IE2 SNV reversed this phenotype, increasing infectivity and syncytium formation. This SNV resulted in a D390H substitution and increased the levels of several early and late viral transcripts, suggesting that it altered the ability of IE2 to activate viral genes. The same two SNVs increased the ability to infect THP-1-derived macrophages and JEG-3 trophoblast cells. These results demonstrate that HCMV cell tropism depends on both envelope glycoproteins and regulatory proteins.IMPORTANCEDifferent genetic versions of human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) affect its ability to infect various human cell types. Here, we focused on a commonly used strain, TB40/E, which contains a mix of virus variants. After growing it in epithelial cells, a specific variant called TB40/EE became dominant. This variant infected epithelial cells more effectively and caused the formation of large, fused cells (syncytia). In this study, we discovered that two small genetic changes were responsible for this behavior. One change affected a protein on the viral envelope (UL128) by altering how its RNA was processed. Surprisingly, this change reduced the virus's ability to spread, but a second change in a regulatory protein (IE2) reversed that effect. Together, these changes enhanced the virus's ability to infect not only epithelial cells but also macrophages and placental cells. This study highlights how small genetic tweaks can influence how HCMV targets different types of human cells.