Project description:The regulation of paramyxovirus RNA synthesis by host proteins is poorly understood. Here, we identified a novel regulation mechanism of paramyxovirus RNA synthesis by the Hsp90 co-chaperone R2TP complex. We showed that the R2TP complex interacted with the paramyxovirus polymerase L protein and that silencing of the R2TP complex led to uncontrolled upregulation of mumps virus (MuV) gene transcription but not genome replication. Regulation by the R2TP complex was critical for MuV replication and evasion of host innate immune responses. The R2TP complex also regulated measles virus (MeV) RNA synthesis, but its function was inhibitory and not beneficial to MeV, as MeV evaded host innate immune responses in the absence of the R2TP complex. The identification of the R2TP complex as a critical host factor sheds new light on the regulation of paramyxovirus RNA synthesis.
Project description:The "rule of six" stipulates that the Paramyxovirus RNA polymerase efficiently replicates only viral genomes counting 6n + 0 nucleotides. Because the nucleocapsid proteins (N) interact with 6 nucleotides, an exact nucleotide-N match at the RNA 3'-OH end (3'-OH congruence) may be required for recognition of an active replication promoter. Alternatively, assuming that the six positions for the interaction of N with the nucleotides are not equivalent, the nucleotide position relative to N may be critical (N phase context). The replication abilities of various minireplicons, designed so that the 3'-OH congruence could be discriminated from the N phase context, were studied. The results strongly suggest that the application of the rule of six depends on the recognition of nucleotides positioned in the proper N phase context.
Project description:Paramyxoviruses represent a family of RNA viruses causing significant human diseases. These include measles virus, the most infectious virus ever reported, in addition to parainfluenza virus, and other emerging viruses. Paramyxoviruses likely share common replication machinery but their mechanisms of RNA biosynthesis activities and details of their complex polymerase structures are unknown. Mechanistic and functional details of a paramyxovirus polymerase would have sweeping implications for understanding RNA virus replication and for the development of new antiviral medicines. To study paramyxovirus polymerase structure and function, we expressed an active recombinant Nipah virus (NiV) polymerase complex assembled from the multifunctional NiV L protein bound to its phosphoprotein cofactor. NiV is an emerging highly pathogenic virus that causes severe encephalitis and has been declared a global public health concern due to its high mortality rate. Using negative-stain electron microscopy, we demonstrated NiV polymerase forms ring-like particles resembling related RNA polymerases. We identified conserved sequence elements driving recognition of the 3'-terminal genomic promoter by NiV polymerase, and leading to initiation of RNA synthesis, primer extension, and transition to elongation mode. Polyadenylation resulting from NiV polymerase stuttering provides a mechanistic basis for transcription termination. It also suggests a divergent adaptation in promoter recognition between pneumo- and paramyxoviruses. The lack of available antiviral therapy for NiV prompted us to identify the triphosphate forms of R1479 and GS-5734, two clinically relevant nucleotide analogs, as substrates and inhibitors of NiV polymerase activity by delayed chain termination. Overall, these findings provide low-resolution structural details and the mechanism of an RNA polymerase from a previously uncharacterized virus family. This work illustrates important functional differences yet remarkable similarities between the polymerases of nonsegmented negative-strand RNA viruses.
Project description:Of Chargaff's four "rules" on DNA base frequencies, the functional interpretation of his second parity rule (PR2) is the most contentious. Thermophile base compositions (GC%) were taken by Galtier and Lobry (1997) as favoring Sueoka's neutral PR2 hypothesis over Forsdyke's selective PR2 hypothesis, namely that mutations improving local within-species recombination efficiency had generated a genome-wide potential for the strands of duplex DNA to separate and initiate recombination through the "kissing" of the tips of stem-loops. However, following Chargaff's GC rule, base composition mainly reflects a species-specific, genome-wide, evolutionary pressure. GC% could not have consistently followed the dictates of temperature, since it plays fundamental roles in both sustaining species integrity and, through primarily neutral genome-wide mutation, fostering speciation. Evidence for a local within-species recombination-initiating role of base order was obtained with a novel technology that masked the contribution of base composition to nucleic acid folding energy. Forsdyke's results were consistent with his PR2 hypothesis, appeared to resolve some root problems in biology and provided a theoretical underpinning for alignment-free taxonomic analyses using relative oligonucleotide frequencies (k-mer analysis). Moreover, consistent with Chargaff's cluster rule, discovery of the thermoadaptive role of the "purine-loading" of open reading frames made less tenable the Galtier-Lobry anti-selectionist arguments.
Project description:Members of the Paramyxovirinae subfamily of the Paramyxoviridae family of viruses have the unusual requirement that the nucleotide length of the viral genome must be an even multiple of six in order for efficient RNA replication, and hence virus replication, to occur. Human parainfluenza virus type 2 (HPIV2) is the only member of the genus that has been reported to have a genome length that is not an even multiple of six, and it has also been recovered from a full-length antigenomic-sense cDNA that did not conform to the "rule of six." To reexamine the issue of nucleotide length in natural isolates of HPIV2, a complete consensus genomic sequence was determined for three HPIV2 strains: Greer, Vanderbilt/1994 (V94), and Vanderbilt/1998. Each of these strains was found to have a genome length of 15,654 nucleotides (nt), thus conforming in each case to the rule of six. To directly examine the requirement that the genomic length of HPIV2 be an even multiple of six, we constructed six full-length antigenomic HPIV2/V94 cDNAs that deviated from a polyhexameric length by 0 to 5 nt. Recombinant HPIV2s were readily recovered from all of the cDNAs, including those that did not conform to the rule of six. One recombinant HPIV2 isolate was completely sequenced for each of the nonpolyhexameric antigenomic cDNAs. These were found to contain small nucleotide insertions or deletions that conferred polyhexameric length to the recovered genome. Interestingly, almost all of the length corrections occurred within the hemagglutinin-neuraminidase and large polymerase genes or the intervening intergenic region and thus were proximal to the insert that caused the deviation from the rule of six. These results demonstrate, in the context of complete infectious virus, that HPIV2 has a strong and seemingly absolute requirement for a polyhexameric genome.
Project description:We have constructed a genome-length cDNA clone for human astrovirus serotype 1. When a human colon cancer-derived cell line, CaCo-2, is transfected with RNA transcribed in vitro from this cDNA clone, infectious virus is produced at titers close to those observed after infection with intact astrovirus. A rodent cell line, BHK, which is largely refractory to astrovirus infection, was found to support efficient growth of the virus if transfected with viral RNA. The high transfection efficiency seen in the BHK cells allows studies of the viral replication in the transfected cells and thus should prove useful for the characterization of noninfectious astroviral mutants.
Project description:The nucleotide sequences of nucleocapsid protein (N); phosphoprotein (P); matrix protein (M); hemagglutinin-neuraminidase (HN); and large polymerase protein (L) genes, 3'-end leader, 5'-end trailer and intergenic regions of the avian paramyxovirus (APMV) strain goose/Shimane/67/2000 (APMV/Shimane67) were determined. Together with previously reported data on fusion protein (F) gene sequence [46], the determination of the genome sequence of APMV/Shimane67 has been completed in this study. The genome of APMV/Shimane67 comprised 16,146 nucleotides in length and contains six genes in the order of 3'-N-P-M-F-HN-L-5'. The features of the APMV/Shimane67 genome (e.g., nucleotide length of whole genome and each of the six genes, and predicted amino acid length of each of the six genes) were distinct from those of other APMV serotypes. Phylogenetic analysis indicated that although APMV/Shimane67 was grouped with APMV-1, -9 and -12, the evolutionary distance between APMV/Shimane67 and these viruses was longer than that observed between intra-serotype viruses. These results show that the genome sequence of APMV/Shimane67 contains specific characteristics and is distinguishable from other types of APMV.
Project description:P2, an RNA-directed RNA polymerase (RdRP), is encoded on the largest of the three segments of the double-stranded RNA genome of cystoviruses. P2 performs the dual tasks of replication and transcription de novo on single-stranded RNA templates, and plays a critical role in the viral life-cycle. Work over the last few decades has yielded a wealth of biochemical and structural information on the functional regulation of P2, on its role in the spatiotemporal regulation of RNA synthesis and its variability across the Cystoviridae family. These range from atomic resolution snapshots of P2 trapped in functionally significant states, in complex with catalytic/structural metal ions, polynucleotide templates and substrate nucleoside triphosphates, to P2 in the context of viral capsids providing structural insight into the assembly of supramolecular complexes and regulatory interactions therein. They include in vitro biochemical studies using P2 purified to homogeneity and in vivo studies utilizing infectious core particles. Recent advances in experimental techniques have also allowed access to the temporal dimension and enabled the characterization of dynamics of P2 on the sub-nanosecond to millisecond timescale through measurements of nuclear spin relaxation in solution and single molecule studies of transcription from seconds to minutes. Below we summarize the most significant results that provide critical insight into the role of P2 in regulating RNA synthesis in cystoviruses.
Project description:BackgroundTransmembrane helices (TMHs) frequently occur amongst protein architectures as means for proteins to attach to or embed into biological membranes. Physical constraints such as the membrane's hydrophobicity and electrostatic potential apply uniform requirements to TMHs and their flanking regions; consequently, they are mirrored in their sequence patterns (in addition to TMHs being a span of generally hydrophobic residues) on top of variations enforced by the specific protein's biological functions.ResultsWith statistics derived from a large body of protein sequences, we demonstrate that, in addition to the positive charge preference at the cytoplasmic inside (positive-inside rule), negatively charged residues preferentially occur or are even enriched at the non-cytoplasmic flank or, at least, they are suppressed at the cytoplasmic flank (negative-not-inside/negative-outside (NNI/NO) rule). As negative residues are generally rare within or near TMHs, the statistical significance is sensitive with regard to details of TMH alignment and residue frequency normalisation and also to dataset size; therefore, this trend was obscured in previous work. We observe variations amongst taxa as well as for organelles along the secretory pathway. The effect is most pronounced for TMHs from single-pass transmembrane (bitopic) proteins compared to those with multiple TMHs (polytopic proteins) and especially for the class of simple TMHs that evolved for the sole role as membrane anchors.ConclusionsThe charged-residue flank bias is only one of the TMH sequence features with a role in the anchorage mechanisms, others apparently being the leucine intra-helix propensity skew towards the cytoplasmic side, tryptophan flanking as well as the cysteine and tyrosine inside preference. These observations will stimulate new prediction methods for TMHs and protein topology from a sequence as well as new engineering designs for artificial membrane proteins.
Project description:BackgroundAnnotation of eukaryotic genomes is a complex endeavor that requires the integration of evidence from multiple, often contradictory, sources. With the ever-increasing amount of genome sequence data now available, methods for accurate identification of large numbers of genes have become urgently needed. In an effort to create a set of very high-quality gene models, we used the sequence of 5,000 full-length gene transcripts from Arabidopsis to re-annotate its genome. We have mapped these transcripts to their exact chromosomal locations and, using alignment programs, have created gene models that provide a reference set for this organism.ResultsApproximately 35% of the transcripts indicated that previously annotated genes needed modification, and 5% of the transcripts represented newly discovered genes. We also discovered that multiple transcription initiation sites appear to be much more common than previously known, and we report numerous cases of alternative mRNA splicing. We include a comparison of different alignment software and an analysis of how the transcript data improved the previously published annotation.ConclusionsOur results demonstrate that sequencing of large numbers of full-length transcripts followed by computational mapping greatly improves identification of the complete exon structures of eukaryotic genes. In addition, we are able to find numerous introns in the untranslated regions of the genes.