Increasing the Capping Efficiency of the Sindbis Virus nsP1 Protein Negatively Affects Viral Infection.

ABSTRACT: Alphaviruses are arthropod-borne RNA viruses that are capable of causing severe disease and are a significant burden to public health. Alphaviral replication results in the production of both capped and noncapped viral genomic RNAs (ncgRNAs), which are packaged into virions during infections of vertebrate and invertebrate cells. However, the roles that the ncgRNAs play during alphaviral infection have yet to be exhaustively characterized. Here, the importance of the ncgRNAs to alphaviral infection was assessed by using mutations of the nsP1 protein of Sindbis virus (SINV), which altered the synthesis of the ncgRNAs during infection by modulating the protein's capping efficiency. Specifically, point mutations at residues Y286A and N376A decreased capping efficiency whereas a point mutation

SUBMITTER: LaPointe AT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6299483 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature