scholarly journals RNA Structures and Their Role in Selective Genome Packaging

Viruses ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (9) ◽  
pp. 1788
Author(s):  
Liqing Ye ◽  
Uddhav B. Ambi ◽  
Marco Olguin-Nava ◽  
Anne-Sophie Gribling-Burrer ◽  
Shazeb Ahmad ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Viral Evolution ◽  
Complex Mixture ◽  
Rna Structures ◽  
Rna Packaging ◽  
Genome Packaging ◽  
Viral Genomes ◽  
Viral Particles ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Packaging Signals

To generate infectious viral particles, viruses must specifically select their genomic RNA from milieu that contains a complex mixture of cellular or non-genomic viral RNAs. In this review, we focus on the role of viral encoded RNA structures in genome packaging. We first discuss how packaging signals are constructed from local and long-range base pairings within viral genomes, as well as inter-molecular interactions between viral and host RNAs. Then, how genome packaging is regulated by the biophysical properties of RNA. Finally, we examine the impact of RNA packaging signals on viral evolution.

scholarly journals Reovirus Low-Density Particles Package Cellular RNA

Viruses ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (6) ◽  
pp. 1096
Author(s):  
Timothy W. Thoner ◽  
Xiang Ye ◽  
John Karijolich ◽  
Kristen M. Ogden
Keyword(s):  
Rna Polymerase ◽  
Viral Proteins ◽  
Viral Rna ◽  
Low Density ◽  
Rna Packaging ◽  
Genome Packaging ◽  
Double Stranded Rna ◽  
Viral Genomes ◽  
Mammalian Orthoreovirus ◽  
Insight Into

Packaging of segmented, double-stranded RNA viral genomes requires coordination of viral proteins and RNA segments. For mammalian orthoreovirus (reovirus), evidence suggests either all ten or zero viral RNA segments are simultaneously packaged in a highly coordinated process hypothesized to exclude host RNA. Accordingly, reovirus generates genome-containing virions and “genomeless” top component particles. Whether reovirus virions or top component particles package host RNA is unknown. To gain insight into reovirus packaging potential and mechanisms, we employed next-generation RNA-sequencing to define the RNA content of enriched reovirus particles. Reovirus virions exclusively packaged viral double-stranded RNA. In contrast, reovirus top component particles contained similar proportions but reduced amounts of viral double-stranded RNA and were selectively enriched for numerous host RNA species, especially short, non-polyadenylated transcripts. Host RNA selection was not dependent on RNA abundance in the cell, and specifically enriched host RNAs varied for two reovirus strains and were not selected solely by the viral RNA polymerase. Collectively, these findings indicate that genome packaging into reovirus virions is exquisitely selective, while incorporation of host RNAs into top component particles is differentially selective and may contribute to or result from inefficient viral RNA packaging.

scholarly journals Flow Cytometry Analysis of HIV-1 Env Conformations at the Surface of Infected Cells and Virions: Role of Nef, CD4, and SERINC5

2019 ◽  
Vol 94 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Isabelle Staropoli ◽  
Jérémy Dufloo ◽  
Anaïs Ducher ◽  
Pierre-Henri Commere ◽  
Anna Sartori-Rupp ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Neutralizing Antibodies ◽  
Cellular Proteins ◽  
Viral Infectivity ◽  
Viral Particles ◽  
Immunodeficiency Virus ◽  
Infected Cells ◽  
Env Protein ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Hiv 1

ABSTRACT The HIV-1 Env protein is exposed at the surface of virions and infected cells. Env fluctuates between different closed and open structural states and these conformations influence both viral infectivity and sensitivity to antibody binding and neutralization. We established a flow virometry assay to visualize Env proteins at the surface of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) virions. The assay is performed on ultracentrifuged fluorescent viral particles that are stained with a panel of broadly neutralizing antibodies (bNAbs) and nonneutralizing antibodies (nnAbs) that probe different epitopes of Env. We used this assay to compare Env at the surface of producer cells and viral particles and to analyze the effect of Nef, CD4, and SERINC5 on Env accessibility to antibodies. We studied the laboratory-adapted strain NL4-3 and two transmitted/founder viruses, THRO and CH058. We confirm that antibody accessibility varies between viral strains and show that Nef, CD4, and SERINC5 additively impact Env conformations. We further demonstrate that the Env accessibility profile on virions is globally similar to that observed on HIV-1-infected cells, with some noticeable differences. For instance, nnAbs bind to virions more efficiently than to producer cells, likely reflecting changes in Env conformational states on mature viral particles. This test complements other techniques and provides a convenient and simple tool for quantifying and probing the structure of Env at the virion surface and to analyze the impact of viral and cellular proteins on these parameters. IMPORTANCE HIV-1 Env conformation is one of the key parameters determining viral infectivity. The flow virometry-based assay developed in this study allows for the characterization of proteins incorporated in HIV-1 particles. We studied the conformation of HIV-1 Env and the impact that the viral protein Nef and the cellular proteins CD4 and SERINC5 have on Env accessibility to antibodies. Our assay permitted us to highlight some noticeable differences in the conformation of Env between producer cells and viral particles. It contributes to a better understanding of the actual composition of HIV-1 particles.

scholarly journals The Number of Alphaherpesvirus Particles Infecting Axons and the Axonal Protein Repertoire Determines the Outcome of Neuronal Infection

mBio ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Orkide O. Koyuncu ◽  
Ren Song ◽  
Todd M. Greco ◽  
Ileana M. Cristea ◽  
Lynn W. Enquist
Keyword(s):  
Nervous System ◽  
Peripheral Nervous System ◽  
Viral Entry ◽  
Retrograde Transport ◽  
Productive Infection ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Viral Genomes ◽  
Neuronal Nuclei ◽  
Viral Particles ◽  
The Impact

ABSTRACTInfection by alphaherpesviruses invariably results in invasion of the peripheral nervous system (PNS) and establishment of either a latent or productive infection. Infection begins with long-distance retrograde transport of viral capsids and tegument proteins in axons toward the neuronal nuclei. Initial steps of axonal entry, retrograde transport, and replication in neuronal nuclei are poorly understood. To better understand how the mode of infection in the PNS is determined, we utilized a compartmented neuron culturing system where distal axons of PNS neurons are physically separated from cell bodies. We infected isolated axons with fluorescent-protein-tagged pseudorabies virus (PRV) particles and monitored viral entry and transport in axons and replication in cell bodies during low and high multiplicities of infection (MOIs of 0.01 to 100). We found a threshold for efficient retrograde transport in axons between MOIs of 1 and 10 and a threshold for productive infection in the neuronal cell bodies between MOIs of 1 and 0.1. Below an MOI of 0.1, the viral genomes that moved to neuronal nuclei were silenced. These genomes can be reactivated after superinfection by a nonreplicating virus, but not by a replicating virus. We further showed that viral particles at high-MOI infections compete for axonal proteins and that this competition determines the number of viral particles reaching the nuclei. Using mass spectrometry, we identified axonal proteins that are differentially regulated by PRV infection. Our results demonstrate the impact of the multiplicity of infection and the axonal milieu on the establishment of neuronal infection initiated from axons.IMPORTANCEAlphaherpesvirus genomes may remain silent in peripheral nervous system (PNS) neurons for the lives of their hosts. These genomes occasionally reactivate to produce infectious virus that can reinfect peripheral tissues and spread to other hosts. Here, we use a neuronal culture system to investigate the outcome of axonal infection using different numbers of viral particles and coinfection assays. We found that the dynamics of viral entry, transport, and replication change dramatically depending on the number of virus particles that infect axons. We demonstrate that viral genomes are silenced when the infecting particle number is low and that these genomes can be reactivated by superinfection with UV-inactivated virus, but not with replicating virus. We further show that viral invasion rapidly changes the profiles of axonal proteins and that some of these axonal proteins are rate limiting for efficient infection. Our study provides new insights into the establishment of silent versus productive alphaherpesvirus infections in the PNS.

scholarly journals Therapeutic interfering particles exploiting viral replication and assembly mechanisms show promising performance: a modelling study

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Farzad Fatehi ◽  
Richard J. Bingham ◽  
Pierre-Philippe Dechant ◽  
Peter G. Stockley ◽  
Reidun Twarock
Keyword(s):  
Viral Infections ◽  
Virus Assembly ◽  
Rna Packaging ◽  
Packaging Signal ◽  
Protein Coding ◽  
Defective Interfering Particles ◽  
Viral Genomes ◽  
Viral Particles ◽  
Promising Treatment ◽  
Key Aspects

AbstractDefective interfering particles arise spontaneously during a viral infection as mutants lacking essential parts of the viral genome. Their ability to replicate in the presence of the wild-type (WT) virus (at the expense of viable viral particles) is mimicked and exploited by therapeutic interfering particles. We propose a strategy for the design of therapeutic interfering RNAs (tiRNAs) against positive-sense single-stranded RNA viruses that assemble via packaging signal-mediated assembly. These tiRNAs contain both an optimised version of the virus assembly manual that is encoded by multiple dispersed RNA packaging signals and a replication signal for viral polymerase, but lack any protein coding information. We use an intracellular model for hepatitis C viral (HCV) infection that captures key aspects of the competition dynamics between tiRNAs and viral genomes for virally produced capsid protein and polymerase. We show that only a small increase in the assembly and replication efficiency of the tiRNAs compared with WT virus is required in order to achieve a treatment efficacy greater than 99%. This demonstrates that the proposed tiRNA design could be a promising treatment option for RNA viral infections.

scholarly journals RNA-mediated translation regulation in viral genomes: computational advances in the recognition of sequences and structures

2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 1151-1163
Author(s):  
Asmita Gupta ◽  
Manju Bansal
Keyword(s):  
Translational Regulation ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Life Forms ◽  
Translation Regulation ◽  
Rna Structures ◽  
Rna Molecules ◽  
Viral Genomes ◽  
Preliminary Identification ◽  
Hairpin Loops

Abstract RNA structures are widely distributed across all life forms. The global conformation of these structures is defined by a variety of constituent structural units such as helices, hairpin loops, kissing-loop motifs and pseudoknots, which often behave in a modular way. Their ubiquitous distribution is associated with a variety of functions in biological processes. The location of these structures in the genomes of RNA viruses is often coordinated with specific processes in the viral life cycle, where the presence of the structure acts as a checkpoint for deciding the eventual fate of the process. These structures have been found to adopt complex conformations and exert their effects by interacting with ribosomes, multiple host translation factors and small RNA molecules like miRNA. A number of such RNA structures have also been shown to regulate translation in viruses at the level of initiation, elongation or termination. The role of various computational studies in the preliminary identification of such sequences and/or structures and subsequent functional analysis has not been fully appreciated. This review aims to summarize the processes in which viral RNA structures have been found to play an active role in translational regulation, their global conformational features and the bioinformatics/computational tools available for the identification and prediction of these structures.

scholarly journals cis-Acting Elements Important for Retroviral RNA Packaging Specificity

2002 ◽  
Vol 76 (10) ◽  
pp. 4950-4960 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin E. Beasley ◽  
Wei-Shau Hu
Keyword(s):  
Leukemia Virus ◽  
Rna Packaging ◽  
Packaging Signal ◽  
Core Element ◽  
Viral Packaging ◽  
Cis Acting ◽  
Spleen Necrosis ◽  
Flanking Regions ◽  
Packaging Signals

ABSTRACT Spleen necrosis virus (SNV) proteins can package RNA from distantly related murine leukemia virus (MLV), whereas MLV proteins cannot package SNV RNA efficiently. We used this nonreciprocal recognition to investigate regions of packaging signals that influence viral RNA encapsidation specificity. Although the MLV and SNV packaging signals (Ψ and E, respectively) do not contain significant sequence homology, they both contain a pair of hairpins. This hairpin pair was previously proposed to be the core element in MLV Ψ. In the present study, MLV-based vectors were generated to contain chimeric SNV/MLV packaging signals in which the hairpins were replaced with the heterologous counterpart. The interactions between these chimeras and MLV or SNV proteins were examined by virus replication and RNA analyses. SNV proteins recognized all of the chimeras, indicating that these chimeras were functional. We found that replacing the hairpin pair did not drastically alter the ability of MLV proteins to package these chimeras. These results indicate that, despite the important role of the hairpin pair in RNA packaging, it is not the major motif responsible for the ability of MLV proteins to discriminate between the MLV and SNV packaging signals. To determine the role of sequences flanking the hairpins in RNA packaging specificity, vectors with swapped flanking regions were generated and evaluated. SNV proteins packaged all of these chimeras efficiently. In contrast, MLV proteins strongly favored chimeras with the MLV 5′-flanking regions. These data indicated that MLV Gag recognizes multiple elements in the viral packaging signal, including the hairpin structure and flanking regions.

scholarly journals Estimating viral bottleneck sizes for FMDV transmission within and between hosts and implications for the rate of viral evolution

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 20190066 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard J. Orton ◽  
Caroline F. Wright ◽  
Donald P. King ◽  
Daniel T. Haydon
Keyword(s):  
Viral Evolution ◽  
Empirical Relationship ◽  
Negative Relationship ◽  
Low Frequency ◽  
Foot And Mouth Disease ◽  
Viral Genomes ◽  
Mouth Disease Virus ◽  
The Impact

RNA viruses exist as populations of closely related genomes, characterized by a high diversity of low-frequency variants. As viral genomes from one population disperse to establish new sites of replication, the fate of these low-frequency variants depends to a large extent on the size of the founding population. Focusing on foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) we conjecture that variants are more likely to be transmitted through wide bottlenecks, but more likely to approach fixation in new populations following narrow bottlenecks; therefore, the longer-term rate of accumulation of ‘nearly neutral’ variants at high frequencies is likely to be inversely related to the bottleneck size. We examine this conjecture in vivo by estimating bottleneck sizes relating ‘parent’ and ‘daughter’ populations observed at different scales ranging from within host to between host (within the same herd, and in different herds) using a previously established method. Within hosts, we find bottleneck sizes to range from 5 to 20 viral genomes between populations transmitted from the pharynx to the serum, and from 4 to 54 between serum and lesion populations. Between hosts, we find bottleneck sizes to range from 2 to 39, suggesting inter-host bottlenecks are of a similar size to intra-host bottlenecks. We establish a statistically significant negative relationship between the probability of genomic consensus level change and bottleneck size, and present a simple sampling model that captures this empirical relationship. We also present a novel in vitro experiment to investigate the impact of bottleneck size on the frequency of mutations within FMDV populations, demonstrate that variant frequency in a population increases more rapidly during small population passages, and provide evidence for positive selection during the passage of large populations.

The Impact of Defective Viruses on Infection and Immunity

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 547-566 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emmanuelle Genoyer ◽  
Carolina B. López
Keyword(s):  
Immune Response ◽  
Virus Replication ◽  
Innate Immune Response ◽  
Rna Viruses ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Viral Persistence ◽  
Innate Immune ◽  
Viral Genomes ◽  
The Impact

Defective viral genomes (DVGs) are generated during viral replication and are unable to carry out a full replication cycle unless coinfected with a full-length virus. DVGs are produced by many viruses, and their presence correlates with alterations in infection outcomes. Historically, DVGs were studied for their ability to interfere with standard virus replication as well as for their association with viral persistence. More recently, a critical role for DVGs in inducing the innate immune response during infection was appreciated. Here we review the role of DVGs of RNA viruses in shaping outcomes of experimental as well as natural infections and explore the mechanisms by which DVGs impact infection outcome.

scholarly journals An epitranscriptomic switch at the 5′-UTR controls genome selection during HIV-1 genomic RNA packaging

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Camila Pereira-Montecinos ◽  
Daniela Toro-Ascuy ◽  
Cecilia Rojas-Fuentes ◽  
Sebastián Riquelme-Barrios ◽  
Bárbara Rojas-Araya ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Full Length ◽  
Genomic Rna ◽  
Rna Packaging ◽  
Gag Protein ◽  
Rna Molecules ◽  
Viral Genomes ◽  
Viral Particles ◽  
Demethylase Activity ◽  
Retroviral Replication ◽  
Hiv 1

ABSTRACTDuring retroviral replication, the full-length RNA serves both as mRNA and genomic RNA (gRNA). While the simple retrovirus MLV segregates its full-length RNA into two functional populations, the HIV-1 full-length RNA was proposed to exist as a single population used indistinctly for protein synthesis or packaging. However, the mechanisms by which the HIV-1 Gag protein selects the two RNA molecules that will be packaged into nascent virions remain poorly understood. Here, we demonstrate that HIV-1 full-length RNA packaging is regulated through an epitranscriptomic switch requiring demethylation of two conserved adenosine residues present within the 5′-UTR. As such, while m6A deposition by METTL3/METTL14 onto the full-length RNA was associated with increased Gag synthesis and reduced packaging, FTO-mediated demethylation was required for the incorporation of the full-length RNA into viral particles. Interestingly, HIV-1 Gag associates with the RNA demethylase FTO in the nucleus and drives full-length RNA demethylation. Finally, the specific inhibition of the FTO RNA demethylase activity suppressed HIV-1 full-length RNA packaging. Together, our data propose a novel epitranscriptomic mechanism allowing the selection of the full-length RNA molecules that will be used as viral genomes.

Intergroup Threat and Outgroup Attitudes

2013 ◽  
Vol 44 (5) ◽  
pp. 311-319 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Brambilla ◽  
David A. Butz
Keyword(s):  
Gay Men ◽  
Social Group ◽  
Welfare Recipients ◽  
Intergroup Attitudes ◽  
Social Policies ◽  
Intergroup Threat ◽  
Economic Threat ◽  
The Impact ◽  
General Climate

Two studies examined the impact of macrolevel symbolic threat on intergroup attitudes. In Study 1 (N = 71), participants exposed to a macrosymbolic threat (vs. nonsymbolic threat and neutral topic) reported less support toward social policies concerning gay men, an outgroup whose stereotypes implies a threat to values, but not toward welfare recipients, a social group whose stereotypes do not imply a threat to values. Study 2 (N = 78) showed that, whereas macrolevel symbolic threat led to less favorable attitudes toward gay men, macroeconomic threat led to less favorable attitudes toward Asians, an outgroup whose stereotypes imply an economic threat. These findings are discussed in terms of their implications for understanding the role of a general climate of threat in shaping intergroup attitudes.

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