Virus Propagation Linked to Exceedingly Rare Gene-Expression Errors: A Single-Molecule Microscopy Demonstration.

ABSTRACT: Many viruses use programmed frameshifting and stop-codon misreading to synthesize functional proteins at high levels. The underlying mechanisms involve complex RNA sequence/structure motifs and likely reflect optimization driven by natural selection of inefficient, nonprogrammed processes. Then, it follows from basic evolutionary theory that low levels of proteins generated through gene expression errors could provide viruses with some survival advantage. Here, we devise an experimental demonstration of this possibility. Phage T7 recruits the host thioredoxin as an essential processivity factor for the viral DNA polymerase. We inserted early stop codons in the thioredoxin gene and appended to its end the sequence encoding for a photoconvertible fluorescent protein. Virus replication was no

SUBMITTER: Luzon-Hidalgo R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12645430 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature