Journal
NUCLEIC ACIDS RESEARCH
Volume 47, Issue 18, Pages 9789-9802Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1093/nar/gkz686
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Funding
- Royal Society/Wellcome Trust Sir Henry Dale Fellowship [202471/Z/16/Z]
- BBSRC Project Grant [BB/S007350/1, BB/S006931/1]
- Wellcome Trust [105389/Z/14/Z]
- University of Cambridge, Department of Pathology PhD Studentship
- BBSRC [BB/S006931/1, BB/S007350/1] Funding Source: UKRI
- Wellcome Trust [105389/Z/14/Z, 202471/Z/16/Z] Funding Source: Wellcome Trust
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Members of the Flaviviridae family, including dengue virus (DENV) and yellow fever virus, cause serious disease in humans, whilst maternal infection with Zika virus (ZIKV) can induce microcephaly in newborns. Following infection, flaviviral RNA genomes are translated to produce the viral replication machinery but must then serve as a template for the transcription of new genomes. However, the ribosome and viral polymerase proceed in opposite directions along the RNA, risking collisions and abortive replication. Whilst generally linear, flavivirus genomes can adopt a circular conformation facilitated by long-range RNA-RNA interactions, shown to be essential for replication. Using an in vitro reconstitution approach, we demonstrate that circularization inhibits de novo translation initiation on ZIKV and DENV RNA, whilst the linear conformation is translation-competent. Our results provide a mechanism to clear the viral RNA of ribosomes in order to promote efficient replication and, therefore, define opposing roles for linear and circular conformations of the flavivirus genome.
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