virology blog
About viruses and viral disease
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My apologies for the poor audio in this lecture: I neglected to turn on my lapel mic and the entire session was recorded on the microphone in my laptop – which was across the room.
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Although many viruses are classified into individual families based on a variety of physical and biological criteria, they may also be placed in groups according to the type of genome in the virion. Over 30 years ago virologist David Baltimore devised an alternative classification scheme that takes into account the nature of the viral nucleic acid.
One of the most significant advances in virology of the past 30 years has been the understanding of how viral genomes are expressed. Cellular genes are encoded in dsDNA, from which mRNAs are produced to direct the synthesis of protein. Francis Crick conceptualized this flow of information as the central dogma of molecular biology:
DNA —> RNA —> protein
All viruses must direct the synthesis of mRNA to produce proteins. No viral genome encodes a complete system for translating proteins; therefore all viral protein synthesis is completely dependent upon the translational machinery of the cell. Baltimore created his virus classification scheme based on the central role of the translational machinery and the importance of viral mRNAs in programming viral protein synthesis. In this scheme, he placed mRNA in the center, and described the pathways to mRNA from DNA or RNA genomes. This arrangement highlights the obligatory relationship between the viral genome and its mRNA.
By convention, mRNA is defined as a positive (+) strand because it is the template for protein synthesis. A strand of DNA of the equivalent sequence is also called the (+) strand. RNA and DNA strands that are complementary to the (+) strand are, of course, called negative (-) strands.
When originally conceived, the Baltimore scheme encompassed six classes of viral genome, as shown in the figure. Subsequently the gapped DNA genome of hepadnaviruses (e.g. hepatitis B virus) was discovered. The genomes of these viruses comprise the seventh class. During replication, the gapped DNA genome is filled in to produce perfect duplexes, because host RNA polymerase can only produce mRNA from a fully double-stranded template.
The Baltimore classification system is an elegant molecular algorithm for virologists. The principles embodied in the scheme are extremely useful for understanding information flow of viruses with different genome configurations. When the bewildering array of viruses is classified by this system, we find fewer than 10 pathways to mRNA. By knowing only the nature of the viral genome, the basic steps that must occur to produce mRNA are readily apparent. More pragmatically, the system simplifies understanding the extraordinary life cycle of viruses.
Crick FH (1958). On protein synthesis. Symposia of the Society for Experimental Biology, 12, 138-63 PMID: 13580867
Baltimore D (1971). Expression of animal virus genomes. Bacteriological reviews, 35 (3), 235-41 PMID: 4329869
Let’s resume our discussion of the influenza virus genome. Last time we established that there are eight negative-stranded RNAs within the influenza virion, each coding for one or two proteins. Now we’ll consider how proteins are made from these RNAs.
Figure 1 shows influenza RNA segment 2, which encodes two proteins: PB1 and PB1-F2. The (-) strand viral RNA is copied to form a (+) strand mRNA, which in turn is used as a template for protein synthesis. Figure 2 (below) shows the nucleotide sequence of the first 180 bases of this mRNA.
The top line, mostly in small letters, is the nucleotide sequence of the viral mRNA. During translation this sequence is read in triplets, each of which specifies an amino acid (the one-letter code for amino acids is used here). Translation usually begins with an ATG which specifies the amino acid methionine; the next triplet, gat, specifies aspartic acid, and so on. Only the first 60 amino acids of the PB1 protein are shown; the protein contains a total of 758 amino acids.
Most of the influenza viral RNAs code for only one protein. However, RNA 2 (and two other RNAs) code for two proteins. In the case of RNA 2, the second protein is made by translation of what is known as an overlapping reading frame.
On the second line of the RNA sequence in figure 2 is an atg highlighted in red. You can see that this atg is not in the reading frame of the PB1 protein. However, it is the start codon for the second protein encoded in RNA 2, the PB1-F2 protein (F2 stands for frame 2, because the protein is translated from the second open reading frame). Figure 3 shows how PB1-F2 is translated. The sequence of the viral RNA is shown from the beginning, except that reading frame 1, which begins at the first ATG, is not translated. Rather, we have begun translation with the internal atg, which is in the second reading frame. This open reading frame encodes the PB1-F2 protein which, in this case, is 90 amino acids in length (its length varies in different isolates). The protein is much shorter than PB1 because translation stops at a termination codon (tga) long before the end of the RNA. Because PB1-F2 is encoded in reading frame 2, its amino acid sequence is completely different from that of PB1.
The sequences used for this example are from the 1918 H1N1 strain of influenza. Notice the amino acid of PB1-F2 which is highlighted in blue. This amino acid has an important role in the biological function of the protein, which we will consider in a future post.
My apologies if the figures and text are not optimally aligned. A blog post is not the optimal format for such information, but in the interest of time I have not explored other options. Suggestions for improvement are welcome.
Send your questions to virology@virology.ws.
The cellular translation machinery is frequently modified in virus-infected cells. Antiviral defense systems or stress responses may be initiated to inhibit protein synthesis and restrict virus replication. On the other hand, many viral genomes encode proteins that modify the cellular translation apparatus to favor the production of viral proteins over those of the cell. One such well-studied modification is the cleavage of the cellular translation protein eIF4G (see illustration) in cells infected by picornaviruses. The consequence of this modification is that capped cellular mRNAs cannot be translated. As the viral genomes are translated by internal ribosome entry, viral protein synthesis is not affected by cleavage of eIF4G.
A recent report in The EMBO Journal has revealed a novel modification of the cellular translation apparatus in cells infected with Sin Nombre virus, a hantavirus.The authors show that the viral nucleocapsid (N) protein binds with high affinity to the cap structure on cellular mRNAs. The N protein can also bind the 43S preinitiation complex (which consists of the 40S ribosomal subunit, several initiation proteins, and the met-tRNAi). Finally, N protein has RNA helicase activity, which facilitates ribosome movement through areas of RNA secondary structure. This viral protein therefore functionally replaces all three components of eIF4F: eIF4E (the cap-binding protein), eIF4G (the scaffolding protein which connects the ribosome to the mRNA), and eIF4A, an RNA helicase. It does so even though it has no amino acid similarity to the proteins of eIF4F. Furthermore, the N protein was previously shown to be involved in viral RNA replication and encapsidation. The multifunctional nature of the N protein should come as no surprise: the hantavirus genome encodes only four proteins. Each must therefore fulfill multiple functions in the replication cycle.
Why would the hantavirus genome encode a protein that replaces eIF4F? One of the earliest cellular responses to virus infection is inhibition of translation;the goal is to restrict viral spread. The properties of the N protein could enable unabated viral translation in the face of such a cellular defense. Furthermore, many viral genomes encode proteins that inhibit viral translation. No such activity has been described in cells infected with hantaviruses. Nevertheless, the N protein could permit translation of viral mRNAs when that of cellular mRNAs is inhibited.
The participation of the hantavirus N proteins in multiple events in the cell identify it as an excellent target for therapeutic intervention.
Mohammad A Mir, Antonito T Panganiban (2008). A protein that replaces the entire cellular eIF4F complex The EMBO Journal, 27 (23), 3129-3139 DOI: 10.1038/emboj.2008.228
Our latest paper has just been published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation. The title of the paper is “Poliovirus tropism and attenuation are determined after internal ribosome entry”. This is the work of a Ph.D. student in my laboratory, Steven Kauder.
If you would like a nice summary of this work, there is an excellent commentary by Bert Semler in the same journal, entitled “Poliovirus proves IRES-istible in vivo“. The title of this commentary is a play on the main theme of the research paper: the Internal Ribosome Entry Site (IRES) of poliovirus. The poliovirus IRES is an RNA sequence at the 5′-end of the viral genome that allows ribosomes to bind internally, rather than threading on the 5′-end as they do for most mRNAs. In our paper, we show that poliovirus attenuation and tropism are not determined by the viral IRES.
Let’s back up a bit to explain this last statement. Viral tropism is defined as the tissues in which a virus replicates. Poliovirus, the causative agent of poliomyelitis, infects very few tissues in humans: the intestine, the brain and spinal cord, and perhaps one other site. A restricted tropism is in fact a common property of many viruses. What restricts viral multiplication to so few tissues has been a long-standing question in virology. For poliovirus, it was first believed that the restricted tropism was a consequence of where the virus receptor is located. The virus receptor is a cell surface protein that is needed to bind the virus particle and bring the genetic material of the virus into the cell. However, some time ago it was shown that the receptor for poliovirus does not determine the narrow tropism of the virus. Subsequently it was suggested that the viral IRES might control the tropism – but in this recent paper we show that this is not the case.
The other topic of our paper concerns the live poliovirus vaccine, also known as the Sabin vaccine or oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV). There are three different vaccine strains of poliovirus, all isolated by Albert Sabin. The genetic material of each vaccine strain contains mutations, or genetic changes, that prevent it from causing disease. When the Sabin vaccines are ingested, they replicate in the intestine and provide immunity to infection, but they do not cause polio. Precisely how these mutations ‘work’ has been a matter of considerable debate. It has been believed that the mutations change the properties of the viral IRES so that it continues to direct translation in the human gut, but not in the spinal cord and brain. In our paper we show that this hypothesis is wrong. A mutation in one of the three Sabin vaccine strains actually weakens the virus in all tissues.
I recognize that much of this description may be beyond the understanding of someone who is not a scientist. A goal of this weblog is to make virology accessible to everyone. Therefore in the coming weeks I will endeavor to provide the background needed to understand this and similar material that will appear here.