Project description:Many eukaryotic viruses require membrane-bound compartments for replication, but no such organelles are known to be formed by prokaryotic viruses1–3. Bacteriophages of the Chimalliviridae family sequester their genomes within a phage-generated organelle, the phage nucleus, which is enclosed by a lattice of the viral protein ChmA4–10. Previously, we observed lipid membrane-bound vesicles in cells infected by Chimalliviridae, but due to the paucity of genetics tools for these viruses it was unknown if these vesicles represented unproductive, abortive infections or a bona fide stage in the phage life cycle. Using the recently-developed dRfxCas13d-based knockdown system CRISPRi-ART11 in combination with fluorescence microscopy and cryo-electron tomography, we show that inhibiting phage nucleus formation arrests infections at an early stage in which the injected phage genome is enclosed within a membrane-bound early phage infection (EPI) vesicle. We demonstrate that early phage genes are transcribed by the virion-associated RNA polymerase from the genome within the compartment, making the EPI vesicle the first known example of a lipid membrane-bound organelle that separates transcription from translation in prokaryotes. Further, we show that the phage nucleus is essential for the phage life cycle, with genome replication only beginning after the injected DNA is transferred from the EPI vesicle to the newly assembled phage nucleus. Our results show that Chimalliviridae require two sophisticated subcellular compartments of distinct compositions and functions that facilitate successive stages of the viral life cycle.
Project description:Membrane-bound transcription factor CREB3L1 undergoes Regulated Intramembrane Proteolysis (RIP) in response to Hepatitis C infection. RIP activates CREB3L1 so that it can prevent the growth of HCV infected cells through the action of downstream genes. We over-expressed a truncated form of CREB3L1 that does not require RIP to enter the nucleus. Cells over-expressing this truncated form were isolated by Fluorescence Activated Cell Sorting (FACS). We used microarray to determine the downstream genes of CREB3L1 in comparison to a flow sorted empty vector control. HCV Replicon-containing cells were transfected with a CREB3L1Δ381-519 to determine the downstream genes.
Project description:Membrane-associated, integral membrane and secreted proteins are of key importance in many cellular processes. For most of the 28 952 predicted proteins in Arabidopsis, the actual subcellular localisation has not been demonstrated experimentally. So far, their potential membrane-association has been deduced from algorithms that predict transmembrane domains and signal peptides. However, the comprehensiveness and accuracy of these algorithms is still limited. The majority of membrane-associated and secreted proteins is synthesised on membrane-bound polysomes. Therefore, the isolation and characterisation of mRNA associated with membrane-bound polysomes offers an experimental tool for the genome-wide identification of these proteins. Here we describe an efficient method to isolate mRNA from membrane-bound polysomes and report on the validation of the method to enrich for transcripts encoding membrane-associated and secreted proteins. The sensitivity and reproducibility of the isolation method was investigated by DNA microarray analysis. Pearson correlations between transcript levels obtained from three replicate isolations showed that the method is highly reproducible. A significant enrichment for mRNAs encoding proteins containing predicted transmembrane domains and signal peptides was observed in the membrane-bound polysomal fraction. In this fraction, 301 transcripts were classified by gene ontologies as âcellular component unknownâ, and potentially encode previously unrecognised secreted or membrane-associated proteins. Membrane-bound (MBP) and free polysomes (FP) were isolated in triplicate from one batch of two weeks old aboveground parts of Arabidopsis seedlings. Each combination of isolated MBP and FP was applied to 4 microarrays, of which two were dyeswapped, giving a total of 12 arrays.