Project description:An Adeno-Associated Virus capsid fitness landscape reveals a frameshifted viral gene and in vivo design principles, enabling machine-guided engineering.
Project description:Recombinant adeno-associated viruses (rAAVs) are the predominant gene therapy vector. Several rAAV vectored therapies have achieved regulatory approval, but production of sufficient rAAV quantities remains difficult. The AAV Rep proteins, which are essential for genome replication and packaging, represent a promising engineering target for improvement of rAAV production but remain underexplored. To gain a comprehensive understanding of the Rep proteins and their mutational landscape, we assayed the effects of all 39,297 possible single codon mutations to the AAV2 rep gene on AAV2 production. Most beneficial variants are not observed in nature, indicating that improved production may require synthetic mutations. Additionally, the effects of AAV2 rep mutations were largely consistent across capsid serotypes, suggesting that production benefits are capsid independent. Our results provide a detailed sequence-to-function map that enhances our understanding of Rep protein function and lays the groundwork for Rep engineering and enhancement of large scale gene therapy production.
Project description:Attenuated viruses have numerous applications, in particular in the context of live viral vaccines. However, purposefully designing attenuated viruses remains challenging, in particular if the attenuation is meant to be resistant to rapid evolutionary recovery. Here we develop and analyze a new attenuation method, promoter ablation, using an established viral model, bacteriophage T7. Ablating promoters of the two most highly expressed T7 proteins (scaffold and capsid) led to major reductions in transcript abundance of the affected genes, with the effect of the double knockout approximately additive of the effects of single knockouts. Fitness reduction was moderate and also approximately additive; fitness recovery on extended adaptation was partial and did not restore the promoters. The fitness effect of promoter knockouts combined with a previously tested codon deoptimization of the capsid gene was less than additive, as anticipated from their competing mechanisms of action. In one design, the engineering created an unintended consequence that led to further attenuation, the effect of which was studied and understood in hindsight. Overall, the mechanisms and effects of genome engineering on attenuation behaved in a predictable manner. Therefore, this work suggests that the rational design of viral attenuation methods is becoming feasible.
Project description:The recent outbreaks of Zika virus (ZIKV) and its association with birth defects known as Congenital Zika Syndrome warrant investigation on the molecular processes related to its infection and pathogenesis. Among the flavivirus family, only ZIKV is linked to microcephaly as announced by World Health Organization, suggesting uniqueness of ZIKV infection compared to other members. By analyzing the ZIKV-host interactome, we found that the key microRNA (miRNA) processing enzyme Dicer was a leading target of ZIKV capsid protein in neural stem cells (NSCs), and its deficiency facilitated ZIKV infection. Mechanistically, ZIKV capsid can directly interact with Dicer and block its ribonuclease activity, dampening the production of host miRNAs that are essential for neurogenesis. Interestingly, this capsid-mediated immune evasion is specific to ZIKV because capsid proteins from other close flaviviruses, e.g., dengue, yellow fever and West Nile viruses, cannot bind to Dicer or inhibit its function. By molecular mapping, we defined a ZIKV capsid H41R mutant with loss of interaction to Dicer and no longer affecting its activity. More importantly, ZIKV H41R mutant exerted almost no impact on neurogenesis in vitro when expressed in NSCs compared to wild type capsid, and in utero infection of recombinant ZIKV-H41R mutant virus resulted in less inhibition on corticogenesis than wild-type ZIKV in mouse embryos. Interestingly, the epidemic ZIKV strain reinforces the capsid-Dicer interaction by two amino acid substitution compared to ancient Africa strain. Thus, our study demonstrated that capsid-dependent suppression of Dicer function is a unique determinant of ZIKV immune evasion and pathogenesis, which may unveil a new mechanism for ZIKV-mediated microcephaly.
Project description:Wild type HIV-1 can infect macrophages to establish productive infection without triggering innate immune receptors or type 1 interferon responses that would otherwise restrict virus propagation. We found that HIV-1 capsid mutants that disrupt capsid interactions with two host factors CPSF6 and cyclophillin A do not replicate in macrophages because they do trigger interferon responses. Genome-wide transcriptional profiling was used to compare the repertoire of interferon stimulated genes induced by these capsid mutants after 24Êh with stimulation of macrophages with interferon-beta or with the RNA analogue Poly IC.
Project description:Alphaviruses are arthropod-borne viruses that represent a significant threat to public health at a global level. While the formation of alphaviral nucleocapsid cores, consisting of cargo nucleic acid and the viral capsid protein, is an essential molecular process of infection, the precise interactions between the two partners are ill-defined. A CLIP-seq approach was used to screen for candidate sites of interaction between the viral Capsid protein and genomic RNA of Sindbis virus (SINV), a model alphavirus. The data presented in this report indicates that the SINV capsid protein binds to specific viral RNA sequences in the cytoplasm of infected cells, but its interaction with genomic RNA in mature extracellular viral particles is largely non-specific in terms of nucleotide sequence. Mutational analyses of the cytoplasmic viral RNA-capsid interaction sites revealed a functional role for capsid binding early in infection. Interaction site mutants exhibited decreased viral growth kinetics; however, this defect was not a function of decreased particle production. Rather mutation of the cytoplasmic capsid-RNA interaction sites negatively affected the functional capacity of the incoming viral genomic RNAs leading to decreased infectivity. Furthermore, cytoplasmic capsid interaction site mutants are attenuated in a murine model of neurotropic alphavirus infection. Collectively, the findings of this study indicate that the identified cytoplasmic interactions of the viral capsid protein and genomic RNA, while not essential for particle formation, are necessary for genomic RNA function early during infection. This previously unappreciated role of capsid protein during the alphaviral replication cycle also constitutes a novel virulence determinant.
Project description:Recombinant adeno-associated viral vectors (rAAVs) are among the most commonly used vehicles for in vivo based gene therapies. However, it is hard to predict which AAV capsid will provide the most robust expression in human subjects due to the observed discordance in vector-mediated transduction between species. We used a primate specific capsid, AAV-LK03, and demonstrated that the limitation of this capsid towards transduction of mouse cells was unrelated to cell entry and nuclear transport but rather due to depleted histone H3 chemical modifications related to active transcription, namely H3K4me3 and H3K27ac, on the vector DNA itself. A single-amino acid insertion into the AAV-LK03 capsid enabled efficient transduction and the accumulation of active-related epigenetic marks on the vector chromatin in mouse without compromising transduction efficiency in human cells. Our study suggests that the capsid protein itself is involved in driving the epigenetic status of the vector genome, most likely during the process of uncoating. Programming viral chromatin states by capsid design may enable facile DNA transduction between vector and host species and ultimately led to rationale selection of AAV capsids for use in humans.
Project description:Recombinant adeno-associated viral vectors (rAAVs) are among the most commonly used vehicles for in vivo based gene therapies. However, it is hard to predict which AAV capsid will provide the most robust expression in human subjects due to the observed discordance in vector-mediated transduction between species. We used a primate specific capsid, AAV-LK03, and demonstrated that the limitation of this capsid towards transduction of mouse cells was unrelated to cell entry and nuclear transport but rather due to depleted histone H3 chemical modifications related to active transcription, namely H3K4me3 and H3K27ac, on the vector DNA itself. A single-amino acid insertion into the AAV-LK03 capsid enabled efficient transduction and the accumulation of active-related epigenetic marks on the vector chromatin in mouse without compromising transduction efficiency in human cells. Our study suggests that the capsid protein itself is involved in driving the epigenetic status of the vector genome, most likely during the process of uncoating. Programming viral chromatin states by capsid design may enable facile DNA transduction between vector and host species and ultimately led to rationale selection of AAV capsids for use in humans.