Project description:Virus-like vesicles (VLVs) are membrane derived cellular vesicles that resemble native envelope viruses in organization and conformation, but lack viral capsid and/or genome. During productive virus infection, both infectious virions and non-infectious VLVs are produced and released into the extracellular space. VLVs have been shown to play a role in intercellular communication and in facilitating virus infection. The study of VLVs in the context of gammaherpesvirus infection has been largely restricted due to the technical difficulty of separating VLVs and virions. Here we report a strategy for using a KSHV mutant deficient in capsid assembly to isolate VLVs during infection. Using Mass Spectrometry analysis, we identified that VLVs contain viral glycoproteins required for cellular entry, and tegument proteins involved in regulating lytic replication. Functional analysis showed that VLVs could activate the RTA promoter, the lytic switch for KSHV, and further induce KSHV lytic gene expression from latency. We used RNA sequencing to do a genome-wide analysis of cellular responses triggered by VLVs, and revealed that PRDM1, a master regulator in cell differentiation, was up-regulated. Our data shows that VLVs play an important role in promoting KSHV lytic replication by inducing PRDM1 expression which activates the RTA promoter. Our study significantly extends our current understanding of VLVs.
Project description:Virus-like vesicles (VLVs) are membrane derived cellular vesicles that resemble native envelope viruses in organization and conformation, but lack viral capsid and/or genome. During productive virus infection, both infectious virions and non-infectious VLVs are produced and released into the extracellular space. VLVs have been shown to play a role in intercellular communication and in facilitating virus infection. The study of VLVs in the context of gammaherpesvirus infection has been largely restricted due to the technical difficulty of separating VLVs and virions. Here we report a strategy for using a KSHV mutant deficient in capsid assembly to isolate VLVs during infection. Using Mass Spectrometry analysis, we identified that VLVs contain viral glycoproteins required for cellular entry, and tegument proteins involved in regulating lytic replication. Functional analysis showed that VLVs could activate the RTA promoter, the lytic switch for KSHV, and further induce KSHV lytic gene expression from latency. We used RNA sequencing to do a genome-wide analysis of cellular responses triggered by VLVs, and revealed that PRDM1, a master regulator in cell differentiation, was up-regulated. Our data shows that VLVs play an important role in promoting KSHV lytic replication by inducing PRDM1 expression which activates the RTA promoter. Our study significantly extends our current understanding of VLVs.
Project description:Pseudouridylation is a prevalent RNA modification shown to occur in tRNAs, rRNAs, snoRNAs and most recently mRNAs and ncRNAs. Emerging evidence suggests that this dynamic RNA modification is implicated in altering gene expression by regulating RNA stability, modulating translation elongation and modifying amino acid substitution rates. However, the role of pseudouridylation in infection is poorly understood. Here we demonstrate that Kaposi’s sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) manipulates the pseudouriylation pathway to enhance replication. We show the pseudouridine synthases (PUS), PUS1 and PUS7 are essential for efficient KSHV lytic replication, supported by the redistribution of PUS7 to viral replication and transcription complexes. Here we present a comprehensive analysis of KSHV RNA pseudouridylation revealing hundreds of modified RNAs at single-nucleotide resolution. Notably, we further demonstrate that pseudouridylation of the KSHV-encoded polyadenylated nuclear RNA (PAN) plays a significant role in the stability of PAN RNA and in the association of the KSHV ORF57 protein. Our findings reveal a novel and essential role of pseudouridine modification in the KSHV replication cycle.
Project description:Historically, ribosomes have been viewed as unchanged homogeneous macromolecular machines with no intrinsic regulatory capacity for mRNA translation. However, an emerging concept is that heterogeneity of ribosomal composition exists, which can exert a regulatory function or specificity in translational control. This is supported by recent discoveries identifying compositionally distinct ‘specialised ribosomes’ that actively regulate mRNA translation. Viruses lack their own translational machinery and impose a high translational demand on the host cell during replication. Here we explore the possibility that Kaposi’s sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) can manipulate host ribosome biogenesis during infection to produce specialised ribosomes which preferentially translate viral transcripts. Quantitative proteomic analysis has identified changes in the stoichiometry and composition of precursor ribosomal complexes during the switch from latent to lytic KSHV replication. Intriguingly, we demonstrate the enhanced association of ribosomal biogenesis factors BUD23 and NOC4L, and a previously uncharacterised KSHV lytic protein, ORF11, with small ribosomal subunit precursor complexes during lytic KSHV infection. Notably, BUD23 depletion resulted in significantly reduced viral gene expression and progression through the lytic cascade, culminating in a dramatic reduction of infectious virion production. Importantly, ribosome profiling demonstrated that BUD23 is essential for the reduced association of ribosomes with KSHV uORFs in late lytic genes, required for the efficient translation of the main open reading frame. Together our results provide new mechanistic insights into KSHV-mediated manipulation of cellular ribosome composition inducing a population of specialised ribosomes to facilitate efficient translation of viral mRNAs.