What would happen to an RNA virus if its genome were placed in a bad neighborhood? The answer is that fitness plummets. RNA virus populations are not composed of a single defined nucleic acid sequence, but are dynamic distributions of many nonidentical but related members. In the past I have referred to these populations as quasispecies but …
At Tufts University Dental School in Boston, Vincent speaks with Katya Heldwein and Sean Whelan about their careers and their work on herpesvirus structure and replication of vesicular stomatitis virus. Click arrow to play Download TWiV 464 (53 MB .mp3, 88 min) Subscribe (free): iTunes, RSS, email Become a patron of TWiV! Show notes at microbe.tv/twiv
We have previously discussed the idea that viruses originated from selfish genetic elements such as plasmids and transposons when these nucleic acids acquired structural proteins (see A plasmid on the road to becoming a virus). I want to explore in more detail the idea that the structural proteins of viruses likely originated from cell proteins (link to …
The TWiViridae review the 2017 Nobel Prizes for cryoEM and circadian rhythms, and discuss modulation of plant virus replication by RNA methylation. Click arrow to play Download TWiV 463 (63 MB .mp3, 104 min) Subscribe (free): iTunes, RSS, email Become a patron of TWiV! Show notes at microbe.tv/twiv
Chemical modification of RNA by the addition of methyl groups is known to alter gene expression without changing the nucleotide sequence. The addition of a methyl group to adenosine has been found to regulate gene expression of animal viruses, and most recently of plant viruses. The illustration shows a methyl (CH3-) group added to the …
Vincent speaks with 1993 Nobel Laureate Phillip A. Sharp about his career and his seminal discovery of RNA splicing in mammalian cells, which changed our understanding of gene structure. Click arrow to play Download TWiV 462 (24 MB .mp3, 39 min) Subscribe (free): iTunes, RSS, email Become a patron of TWiV! Show notes at microbe.tv/twiv
