7. Viral uncoating Flashcards
Why does viral uncoating need to be carefully controlled?
- Viral particles are carefully assembled during replication.
- They are very stable particles in the environment that need to rapidly fall apart once they enter the cell.
- This is programmed.
- Uncoating is triggered and mediated by host cell proteins as you know that you are in a cell.
- Some other cues like pH drop can be used.
What is the purpose of viral uncoating?
- Viruses need to get to the site of replication for their genome.
- Cells can be different shapes so the nucleus can be far away from the edge of the cell.
- This creates a problem for viruses trying to find the nucleus for replication.
- Uncoating releases proteins that aid the virus to move towards the nucleus.
What is the ubiquitin ligase system?
- A system for degrading and recycling proteins in cells.
- Ubiquitin can covalently bind to proteins to flag them for the proteasome. They usually bind to a lysine residue.
- These proteins are then degraded and recycled.
- This process constantly occurs in cells.
- Ubiquitin can also be ubiquitinated to make ubiquitin chains which drives proteins into the proteasome.
What is ubiquitin?
A short 76 amino acid long peptide that exist free in cells.
What is the mechanism of the ubiquitin ligase system?
- E1 is ubiquitinated which requires ATP.
- E1 passes the ubiquitination onto E2.
- E3 picks up a target protein and brings it to E2.
- E2 then ubiquitinates the target protein.
- The E3 ubiquitin ligases target individual proteins for E2 to degrade.
What is the ubiquitin system essential for in host cells?
- Cell cycle control
- controlling proliferation.
How can adenoviruses hijack the ubiquitin ligase system?
- They direct ubiquitin ligases to degrade proteins it wants to get rid of quickly.
- These are usually proteins that will interfere with viral replication.
- This is much quicker then targeting the production of these proteins.
- Over ubiquitination rapidly get rid of host cell proteins.
- This is useful for viral entry
What are microtubules?
- The main way for moving things around the cell.
- They spread out from the microtubule organising centre (MTOC).
- MTOC is associated with the nucleus and the microtubules radiate out from this point.
- The + end is dynamic and undergoes polymerisation and depolymerisation.
- The - end is anchored at the MTOC and is less dynamic
- Microtubules help form the shape of the cell.
Why do viruses associate with the microtubules?
- If a virus associates with the microtubules and makes its way towards the - end, it will end up near the nucleus of the cell.
- Most helpful to associate with dynactin to move towards the nucleus.
How is cargo moved along the microtubules?
- Via motor proteins called dynactin and kinesin.
- Kinesin moves cargo towards the positive end and away from MTOC.
- Dynactin moves towards the negative end and towards MTOC.
- They attach substrate by various adaptor proteins and move cargo around the cell.
What is the nuclear pore complex?
- It is a very complex protein made up of many different proteins.
- It is embedded in the nuclear membrane and allows movement in and out of the nucleus.
- There are a few thousand nuclear pores per cell.
Do all proteins need to use the nuclear pore to enter the nucleus?
- No
- Proteins less than 40KDa can diffuse across the pore.
- This is passive.
- 40KDa is a loose boundary and diffusion can also depend on shape can charge of the protein.
How do proteins cross through the nuclear pore complex?
- They are actively transported through the poor.
- Proteins interact with the cytoplasmic filaments of the nuclear pore and trigger nuclear import.
- Cellular and viral proteins need to bind an import/export factor to enter/leave the nucleus.
- This requires energy.
What are nuclear localisation sequences?
- These are short arginine or lysine-rich sequences in proteins.
- These bind import factors.
- This allows proteins to enter the nucleus.
(This is a slight simplification.)
What are adenoviruses?
- Non-enveloped, linear dsDNA genome virus.
- Viral replication and assembly of particles occurs in the nucleus of infected cells.
- It is most famous for its potential as a gene therapy vector.
What is the structure of adenoviruses?
- Hexons form the bulk of the virus particle.
- The hexons make the icosahedral shape.
- Core proteins like protein 5 and 7 wrap and condense the genome.
- Cement proteins stabilise the viral particle by associating with the hexons.
What are the most common adenoviruses?
- Type 2 and type 5 adenoviruses.
- These are very common.
- These cause very mild colds.
What is the adenovirus protein 6?
- It is a cement protein.
- It is associated with the inside of the hexons.
- It plays an important role in viral uncoating.
What is the adenovirus penton base protein?
- It makes the points of the icosahedral shape.
- It also has the fibre that allows the virus to attach to host cells.
How are most adenovirus proteins made?
- As immature precursors.
- These are used to assemble the virus.
- This includes protein 6, protein 7, protein 8 and terminal protein.
How are the adenovirus precursor proteins activated?
- A viral protease called AVP is also packaged into the adenovirus particle.
- AVP is activated as the host cell dies and the virus is released.
- AVP cleaves specific sites in the precursor proteins inside the immature virus.
- All the proteins need to be cleaved and are needed to make the mature virus particle.
- Once the proteins are cleaved, the structure of the virion changes to make the mature virus.
What happens if the adenovirus precursor proteins aren’t cleaved?
- The viral proteins can’t mature.
- So the virus particle can’t mature.
- This virus can still enter the endosome but it can’t escape the endosome so the virus dies.
- If the virus has no mature proteins it is not infectious.
How does adenovirus enter the host cell?
- It attaches to the host cell via the penton fibre.
- The virus particle is taken up by clathrin-mediated endocytosis.
- The endosome is trafficked along the microtubules.
- The pH starts to drop.
How do adenoviruses escape the endosome?
- As the endosome moves along the microtubules the pH drops to pH 5.
- This triggers the virus particle structure to change and start to come apart.
- This allows protein 6 to escape the virus and lyse the endosome.
- The virus particle can then escape the endosome.