Bovine herpesvirus 1 tegument protein UL21 plays critical roles in viral secondary envelopment and cell-to-cell spreading.

Bovine herpesvirus 1 (BoHV-1) UL21 is a tegument protein thought to be indispensable for efficient viral growth but its precise function in BoHV-1 is currently unknown. To determine the function of UL21 in BoHV-1 replication, we constructed a mutant virus bearing a UL21 deletion (vBoHV-1-∆UL21) and its revertant virus, vBoHV-1-∆UL21R, in which the UL21 gene was restored using a bacterial artificial chromosome system. The replication of vBoHV-1-∆UL21 was 1,000-fold lower and its plaque size was 85% smaller than those of the wild-type virus (BoHV-1). An ultrastructural analysis showed that deletion of UL21 led to an un-enveloped capsid accumulation in the cytoplasm, whereas nucleocapsid egress was not impaired, suggesting that UL21 is critical for secondary envelopment in BoHV-1. Co-immunoprecipitation assays revealed that HA-tagged UL21 pulled down UL16, suggesting that these two proteins form a complex, and this was further confirmed by a co-immunofluorescence assay. Taken together, these data provide evidence that UL21 plays critical roles in BoHV-1 secondary envelopment, and UL16 is likely to be involved in these activities.