virology blog
About viruses and viral disease
No problem not being nice to Dickson in this episode, because he’s absent for a discussion of a new giant virus that replicates in the cytoplasm yet transiently accesses the nucleus to bootstrap infection.
You can find TWiV #440 at microbe.tv/twiv, or listen below.
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Among the multitudes of eukaryotic viruses with DNA genomes, some replicate in the cell nucleus, while others avoid the nuclear bureaucracy and remain in the cytoplasm. But biology is not always so rigid: a new giant virus has been found that replicates in the cytoplasm, where it seems to recruit components of the nuclear transcription machinery (link to paper).
Noumeavirus was isolated from a pond near – where else? – Noumea airport in New Caledonia. The 200 nanometer icosahedral particles infect the amoeba Acanthamoeba castellani and have a double-stranded DNA genome of 376,207 base pairs encoding 452 proteins. Sequence comparisons revealed Noumeavirus to be a new member of the family Marseilleviridae, which  includes other previously discovered giant viruses.
Other members of the Marseilleviridae replicate in the cytoplasm of the host cell, so it was assumed that the related Noumeavirus would do the same. However an analysis of the proteins in purified virus particles revealed an absence of components of the transcriptional machinery – which is needed for ths synthesis of mRNA. RNA polymerase, for example, is readily detected in other cytoplasmic viruses such as Mimivirus and poxviruses.
If proteins involved in transcription are not present in the Noumeavirus particle, and the virus does not enter the nucleus, how are viral mRNAs produced?  It appears that early in infection, the required proteins are moved from the nucleus to sites of viral replication in the cytoplasm. When nuclear proteins were labled with green fluorescent protein, within one hour after infection they can be seen moving out of the nucleus into the cytoplasm to sites of viral replication. The nuclear integrity remains intact, as host DNA does not leave the organelle. This recruitment of nuclear proteins is transient:  after 2-4 hours proteins are no longer leaving the nucleus.
This series of events suggests that nuclear proteins needed to initiate viral mRNA synthesis are recruited from the nucleus to sites of viral replication in the cytoplasm. Once viral mRNAs are made, the viral transcriptional machinery can be assembled and the nuclear proteins are no longer needed. The authors call this ‘remote control of the host nucleus.’
Confirmation of this hypothesis will require the demonstration that nuclear proteins involved in viral mRNA synthesis are recruited to early sites of viral replication in the cytoplasm. It will also be essential to identify the mechanism by which these nuclear proteins are extracted. Perhaps one or more virion proteins, such as an abundant 150 amino acid protein of unknown function, is involved.
Other giant viruses, such as Mimivirus, package the viral transcriptional machinery in the virus particle and are independent of the cell nucleus. At the other extreme are viruses that undergo transcription and DNA synthesis entirely in the nucleus (e.g., herpesviruses). Perhaps Noumeavirus is a relic of an evolutionary transition between the two replication strategies.
On episode #293 of the science show This Week in Virology, Vincent visits Melbourne, Australia and speaks with Melissa, Alex, Gilda, and Paul about their work on HIV infection of the central nervous system, West Nile virus, microbicides for HIV, and the Koala retrovirus.
You can find TWiV #293 at www.microbe.tv/twiv.
On episode #279 of the science show This Week in Virology, Vincent, Alan, and Kathy reveal how a retrovirus in the human genome keeps embryonic stem cells in a pluripotent state, from where they can differentiate into all cells of the body.
You can find TWiV #279 at www.microbe.tv/twiv.
About eight percent of human DNA is viral – remnants of ancestral infections with retroviruses. These endogenous retroviral sequences do not produce infectious viruses, and most are considered to be junk DNA. But some of them provide important functions. The protein called syncytin, which is essential for formation of the placenta, originally came to the genome of our ancestors, and those of other mammals, via a retrovirus infection. Another amazing role of endogenous retroviruses is that they regulate the stem cells that are the precursors of all the cells in our body.
The genetic material of retroviruses is RNA, but during infection it is converted to DNA which then integrates into the chromosome of the cell.  If the infected cell happens to be a germ cell, then the viral DNA, now called called an endogenous retrovirus, becomes a permanent part of the animal and its offspring. One of our endogenous retroviruses, called HERV-H, infected human ancestors about 25 million years ago. HERV-H has been found to be important for the properties of human embryonic stem cells.
Embryonic stem cells (ES cells), which are derived from the inner cell mass of a blastocyst (which forms 4-5 days after implantation), are pluripotent – they can differentiate into every cell type in the human body. Being pluripotent means expressing a very different set of genes compared with somatic cells – the cells of skin, muscle, organs, to name a few. The genes that are expressed in ES cells are controlled by a small number of key proteins that regulate mRNA synthesis. If these proteins – just four – are produced in a differentiated cell, it will turn into an ES cell – an induced, pluripotent embryonic stem cell, or iPSC. This observation garnered Shinya Yamanaka the Nobel Prize in 2012.
The first clue that HERV-H might be important for the pluripotency of ES cells was the finding that this DNA is preferentially expressed in human ES cells (the figure [credit] shows the expression of HERV-H in ES and two other cell types). When the levels of HERV-H RNAs are reduced (by RNA interference) in ES cells, the morphology of the cells changes – they become fibroblast-like, a sign of differentiation. In contrast, when fibroblasts are reprogrammed to become iPSCs, the levels of HERV-H RNAs rise. These findings suggest that HERV-H is essential for keeping ES cells pluripotent, and for making somatic cells pluripotent.
The HERV-H DNA in our genome is flanked by viral sequences called long terminal repeats, or LTRs. These provide initiation sites for the synthesis of viral mRNAs. In human ES cells the HERV-H LTRs appear to be enhancing the transcription of nearby human genes that are important for maintaing pluripotency. In an interesting twist, the HERV-H viral RNA is important for this activity: it appears to bind proteins involved in the regulation of mRNAs important for pluripotency. This observation explains why reducing HERV-H viral RNA leads to loss of pluripotency.
The HERV-H RNA made in human ES cells is not translated into protein because it contains many mutations that have accumulated over the past 25 million years. Therefore HERV-H is a long, non-coding RNA (lncRNA), a relatively recently discovered class of regulatory RNAs. There are about 35,000 lncRNAs in human cells that are involved in controlling a variety of processes such as splicing, translation and epigenetic modifications. Now we know that endogenous retroviruses can also produce lncRNAs.
Without endogenous retroviruses, humans might not be recognizable as the Homo sapiens that today walk the Earth. They might also be egg-layers – but the eggs would be white. Viruses don’t just make us sick.
En esta clase revisaremos como se sintetizan los pre-RNA mensajeros a partir de sus templados de DNA, y como los pre-mRNA se convierten a mRNAs maduros mediante splicing, poliadenilación, y su exportación del núcleo al citoplasma celular.