scholarly journals Involvement of a Nonstructural Protein in Poliovirus Capsid Assembly

2018 ◽  
Vol 93 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Oluwapelumi O. Adeyemi ◽  
Lee Sherry ◽  
Joseph C. Ward ◽  
Danielle M. Pierce ◽  
Morgan R. Herod ◽  
...  

ABSTRACTVirus capsid proteins must perform a number of roles. These include self-assembly and maintaining stability under challenging environmental conditions, while retaining the conformational flexibility necessary to uncoat and deliver the viral genome into a host cell. Fulfilling these roles could place conflicting constraints on the innate abilities encoded within the protein sequences. In a previous study, we identified a number of mutations within the capsid-coding sequence of poliovirus (PV) that were established in the population during selection for greater thermostability by sequential treatment at progressively higher temperatures. Two mutations in the VP1 protein acquired at an early stage were maintained throughout this selection procedure. One of these mutations prevented virion assembly when introduced into a wild-type (wt) infectious clone. Here we show, by sequencing beyond the capsid-coding region of the heat-selected virions, that two mutations had arisen within the coding region of the 2A protease. Both mutations were maintained throughout the selection process. Introduction of these mutations into a wt infectious clone by site-directed mutagenesis considerably reduced replication. However, they permitted a low level of assembly of infectious virions containing the otherwise lethal mutation in VP1. The 2Apromutations were further shown to slow the kinetics of viral polyprotein processing, and we suggest that this delay improves the correct folding of the mutant capsid precursor protein to permit virion assembly.IMPORTANCERNA viruses, including poliovirus, evolve rapidly due to the error-prone nature of the polymerase enzymes involved in genome replication. Fixation of advantageous mutations may require the acquisition of complementary mutations which can act in concert to achieve a favorable phenotype. This study highlights a compensatory role of a nonstructural regulatory protein, 2Apro, for an otherwise lethal mutation of the structural VP1 protein to facilitate increased thermal resistance. Studying how viruses respond to selection pressures is important for understanding mechanisms which underpin emergence of resistance and could be applied to the future development of antiviral agents and vaccines.

2009 ◽  
Vol 84 (3) ◽  
pp. 1641-1647 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ezequiel Balmori Melian ◽  
Edward Hinzman ◽  
Tomoko Nagasaki ◽  
Andrew E. Firth ◽  
Norma M. Wills ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT Flavivirus NS1 is a nonstructural protein involved in virus replication and regulation of the innate immune response. Interestingly, a larger NS1-related protein, NS1′, is often detected during infection with the members of the Japanese encephalitis virus serogroup of flaviviruses. However, how NS1′ is made and what role it performs in the viral life cycle have not been determined. Here we provide experimental evidence that NS1′ is the product of a −1 ribosomal frameshift event that occurs at a conserved slippery heptanucleotide motif located near the beginning of the NS2A gene and is stimulated by a downstream RNA pseudoknot structure. Using site-directed mutagenesis of these sequence elements in an infectious clone of the Kunjin subtype of West Nile virus, we demonstrate that NS1′ plays a role in viral neuroinvasiveness.


1999 ◽  
Vol 73 (4) ◽  
pp. 3386-3403 ◽  
Author(s):  
Min-Hsin Chen ◽  
Teryl K. Frey

ABSTRACT Thermodynamically predicted secondary structure analysis of the 3′-terminal 305 nucleotides (nt) of the rubella virus (RUB) genome, a region conserved in all RUB defective interfering RNAs, revealed four stem-loop (SL) structures; SL1 and SL2 are both located in the E1 coding region, while SL3 and SL4 are within the 59-nt 3′ untranslated region (UTR) preceding the poly(A) tract. SL2 is a structure shown to interact with human calreticulin (CAL), an autoantigen potentially involved in RUB RNA replication and pathogenesis. RNase mapping indicated that SL2 and SL3 are in equilibrium between two conformations, in the second of which the previously proposed CAL binding site in SL2, a U-U bulge, is not formed. Site-directed mutagenesis of the 3′ UTR with a RUB infectious clone, Robo302, revealed that most of the 3′ UTR is required for viral viability except for the 3′-terminal 5 nt and the poly(A) tract, although poly(A) was rapidly regenerated during subsequent replication. Maintenance of the overall SL3 structure, the 11-nt single-stranded sequence between SL3 and SL4, and the sequences forming SL4 were all important for viral viability. Studies on the interaction between host factors and the 3′ UTR showed the formation of three RNA-protein complexes by gel mobility shift assay, and UV-induced cross-linking detected six host protein species, with molecular masses of 120, 80, 66, 55, 48, and 36 kDa, interacting with the 3′ UTR. Site-directed mutagenesis of SL2 by nucleotide substitutions showed that maintenance of SL2 stem rather than the U-U bulge was critical in CAL binding since mutants having the U-U bulge base paired had a similar binding activity for CAL as the native structure whereas mutants having the SL2 stem destabilized had much lower binding activity. However, all of these mutations gave rise to viable viruses when introduced into Robo302, indicating that binding of CAL to SL2 is independent of viral viability.


Viruses ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (7) ◽  
pp. 1393
Author(s):  
Thanyaporn Dechtawewat ◽  
Sittiruk Roytrakul ◽  
Yodying Yingchutrakul ◽  
Sawanya Charoenlappanit ◽  
Bunpote Siridechadilok ◽  
...  

Dengue virus (DENV) infection causes a spectrum of dengue diseases that have unclear underlying mechanisms. Nonstructural protein 1 (NS1) is a multifunctional protein of DENV that is involved in DENV infection and dengue pathogenesis. This study investigated the potential post-translational modification of DENV NS1 by phosphorylation following DENV infection. Using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS), 24 potential phosphorylation sites were identified in both cell-associated and extracellular NS1 proteins from three different cell lines infected with DENV. Cell-free kinase assays also demonstrated kinase activity in purified preparations of DENV NS1 proteins. Further studies were conducted to determine the roles of specific phosphorylation sites on NS1 proteins by site-directed mutagenesis with alanine substitution. The T27A and Y32A mutations had a deleterious effect on DENV infectivity. The T29A, T230A, and S233A mutations significantly decreased the production of infectious DENV but did not affect relative levels of intracellular DENV NS1 expression or NS1 secretion. Only the T230A mutation led to a significant reduction of detectable DENV NS1 dimers in virus-infected cells; however, none of the mutations interfered with DENV NS1 oligomeric formation. These findings highlight the importance of DENV NS1 phosphorylation that may pave the way for future target-specific antiviral drug design.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 1574
Author(s):  
Shabana Urooj ◽  
Satya P. Singh ◽  
Areej Malibari ◽  
Fadwa Alrowais ◽  
Shaeen Kalathil

Effective and accurate diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), as well as early-stage detection, has gained more and more attention in recent years. For AD classification, we propose a new hybrid method for early detection of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) using Polar Harmonic Transforms (PHT) and Self-adaptive Differential Evolution Wavelet Neural Network (SaDE-WNN). The orthogonal moments are used for feature extraction from the grey matter tissues of structural Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) data. Irrelevant features are removed by the feature selection process through evaluating the in-class and among-class variance. In recent years, WNNs have gained attention in classification tasks; however, they suffer from the problem of initial parameter tuning, parameter setting. We proposed a WNN with the self-adaptation technique for controlling the Differential Evolution (DE) parameters, i.e., the mutation scale factor (F) and the cross-over rate (CR). Experimental results on the Alzheimer’s disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) database indicate that the proposed method yields the best overall classification results between AD and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) (93.7% accuracy, 86.0% sensitivity, 98.0% specificity, and 0.97 area under the curve (AUC)), MCI and healthy control (HC) (92.9% accuracy, 95.2% sensitivity, 88.9% specificity, and 0.98 AUC), and AD and HC (94.4% accuracy, 88.7% sensitivity, 98.9% specificity and 0.99 AUC).


Microbiology ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 149 (11) ◽  
pp. 3073-3081 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerardo Medina ◽  
Katy Juárez ◽  
Rafael Díaz ◽  
Gloria Soberón-Chávez

The Pseudomonas aeruginosa rhlR gene encodes the transcriptional regulator RhlR which has a central role in the quorum-sensing response. Different gene products involved in bacterial pathogenesis are regulated at the transcriptional level by two quorum-sensing response systems, Las and Rhl. The expression of rhlR has been reported to be under the control of the Las system, but its transcriptional regulation has not been studied in detail. Here, the rhlR promoter region has been characterized and shown to present four different transcription start sites, two of which are included in the upstream gene (rhlB) coding region. It was found that rhlR expression is not only dependent on LasR but also on different regulatory proteins such as Vfr and RhlR itself, and also on the alternative sigma factor σ 54. It is reported that rhlR expression is partially LasR-independent under certain culture conditions and is strongly influenced by environmental factors.


2000 ◽  
Vol 74 (3) ◽  
pp. 1538-1543 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Vialat ◽  
A. Billecocq ◽  
A. Kohl ◽  
M. Bouloy

ABSTRACT Unlike all the other Rift Valley fever virus strains (Bunyaviridae, Phlebovirus) studied so far, clone 13, a naturally attenuated virus, does not form the filaments composed of the NSs nonstructural protein in the nuclei of infected cells (R. Muller, J. F. Saluzzo, N. Lopez, T. Drier, M. Turell, J. Smith, and M. Bouloy, Am. J. Trop. Med. Hyg. 53:405–411, 1995). This defect is correlated with a large in-frame deletion in the NSs coding region of the S segment of the tripartite genome. Here, we show that the truncated NSs protein of clone 13 is expressed and remains in the cytoplasm, where it is degraded rapidly by the proteasome. Through the analysis of reassortants between clone 13 and a virulent strain, we localized the marker(s) of attenuation in the S segment of this attenuated virus. This result raises questions regarding the role of NSs in pathogenesis and highlights, for the first time in theBunyaviridae family, a major role of the S segment in virulence and attenuation, possibly associated with a defect in the nonstructural protein.


Endocrinology ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 153 (6) ◽  
pp. 2851-2860 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bayasula ◽  
Akira Iwase ◽  
Tohru Kiyono ◽  
Sachiko Takikawa ◽  
Maki Goto ◽  
...  

The ovary is a complex endocrine organ responsible for steroidogenesis and folliculogenesis. Follicles consist of oocytes and two primary steroidogenic cell types, the granulosa cells, and the theca cells. Immortalized human granulosa cells are essential for researching the mechanism of steroidogenesis and folliculogenesis. We obtained granulosa cells from a 35-yr-old female and immortalized them by lentivirus-mediated transfer of several genes so as to establish a human nonluteinized granulosa cell line (HGrC1). We subsequently characterized HGrC1 and investigated its steroidogenic performance. HGrC1 expressed enzymes related to steroidogenesis, such as steroidogenic acute regulatory protein, CYP11A, aromatase, and gonadotropin receptors. Stimulation with FSH increased the mRNA levels of aromatase, which consequently induced the aromatization of androstenedione to estradiol. Activin A increased the mRNA levels of the FSH receptor, which were synergistically up-regulated with FSH stimulation. HGrC1 also expressed a series of ligands and receptors belonging to the TGF-β superfamily. A Western blot analysis showed that bone morphogenetic protein (BMP)-4, BMP-6, and BMP-7 phosphorylated small mother against decapentaplegic (Smad)1/5/8, whereas growth differentiation factor-9 phosphorylated Smad2/3. BMP-15 and anti-Müllerian hormone phosphorylated Smad1/5/8 while also weakly phosphorylating Smad2/3. These results indicate that HGrC1 may possess the characteristics of granulosa cells belonging to follicles in the early stage. HGrC1 might also be capable of displaying the growth transition from a gonadotropin-independent status to gonadotropin-dependent one.


Author(s):  
Eric A. Iverson ◽  
David A. Goodman ◽  
Madeline E. Gorchels ◽  
Kenneth M. Stedman

Viruses with spindle or lemon-shaped virions are rare in the world of viruses, but are common in viruses of archaeal extremophiles, possibly due to the extreme conditions in which they thrive. However, the structural and genetic basis for the unique spindle shape is unknown. The best-studied spindle-shaped virus, SSV1, is composed mostly of the major capsid protein VP1. Similar to many other viruses, proteolytic cleavage of VP1 is thought to be critical for virion formation. Unlike half of the genes in SSV1, including the minor capsid protein gene vp3, the vp1 gene does not tolerate deletion or transposon insertion. In order determine the role of the vp1 gene and its proteolysis for virus function, we developed techniques for site-directed mutagenesis of the SSV1 genome and complemented deletion mutants with vp1 genes from other SSVs. By analyzing these mutants we demonstrate that the N-terminus of the VP1 protein is required, but the N-terminus, or entire SSV1 VP1 protein, can be exchanged with VP1s from other SSVs. However, the conserved glutamate at the cleavage site is not essential for infectivity. Interestingly, viruses containing point mutations at this position generate mostly abnormal virions.


Author(s):  
Eric A. Iverson ◽  
David A. Goodman ◽  
Madeline E. Gorchels ◽  
Kenneth M. STEDMAN

Viruses with spindle or lemon-shaped virions are rare in the world of viruses, but are common in viruses of archaeal extremophiles, possibly due to the extreme conditions in which they thrive. However, the structural and genetic basis for the unique spindle shape is unknown. The best-studied spindle-shaped virus, SSV1, is composed mostly of the major capsid protein VP1. Similar to many other viruses, proteolytic cleavage of VP1 is thought to be critical for virion formation. Unlike half of the genes in SSV1, including the minor capsid protein VP3, the vp1 gene does not tolerate deletion or transposon insertion. In order determine the role of the vp1 gene and its proteolysis for virus function, we developed techniques for site-directed mutagenesis of the SSV1 genome and complemented deletion mutants with vp1 genes from other SSVs. By analyzing these mutants we demonstrate that the N-terminus of the VP1 protein is required, but the N-terminus, or entire SSV1 VP1 protein, can be exchanged with VP1s from other SSVs. However, the conserved glutamate at the cleavage site is not essential. Interestingly, viruses containing point mutations at this position generate mostly abnormal virions.


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