Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
Pivot Concepts:   Target Concepts:
Query: EC:2.7.7.6 (RNA polymerase)
34,946 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

The influenza A virus RNA-dependent RNA polymerase consists of three subunits-PB1, PB2, and PA. The PB1 subunit is the catalytically active polymerase, catalyzing the sequential addition of nucleotides to the growing RNA chain. The PB2 subunit is a cap-binding protein that plays a role in initiation of viral mRNA synthesis by recruiting capped RNA primers. The function of PA is unknown, but previous studies of temperature-sensitive viruses with mutations in PA have implied a role in viral RNA replication. In this report we demonstrate that the PA subunit is required not only for replication but also for transcription of viral RNA. We mutated evolutionarily conserved amino acids to alanines in the C-terminal region of the PA protein, since the C-terminal region shows the highest degree of conservation between PA proteins of influenza A, B, and C viruses. We tested the effects of these mutations on the ability of RNA polymerase to transcribe and replicate viral RNA. We also tested the compatibility of these mutations with viral viability by using reverse-genetics techniques. A mutant with a histidine-to-alanine change at position 510 (H510A) in the PA protein of influenza A/WSN/33 virus showed a differential effect on transcription and replication. This mutant was able to perform replication (vRNA-->cRNA-->vRNA), but its transcriptional activity (vRNA-->mRNA) was negligible. In vitro analyses of the H510A recombinant polymerase, by using transcription initiation, vRNA-binding, capped-RNA-binding, and endonuclease assays, suggest that the primary defect of this mutant polymerase is in its endonuclease activity.
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PMID:A single amino acid mutation in the PA subunit of the influenza virus RNA polymerase inhibits endonucleolytic cleavage of capped RNAs. 1218 83

An R638A mutation of the polymerase acidic protein (PA) subunit of the RNA polymerase of influenza A/WSN/33 virus results in severe attenuation of viral growth in cell culture by promoting the synthesis of defective interfering RNAs. We propose that R638A is an "elongation" mutant that destabilizes PA-RNA template interactions during elongation. A C453R mutation in PA can compensate for this defect, suggesting that amino acids C453 and R638 form part of the same domain.
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PMID:A single amino acid mutation in the PA subunit of the influenza virus RNA polymerase promotes the generation of defective interfering RNAs. 1266 10

The RNA-dependent RNA polymerase of influenza virus consists of three subunits, PB1, PB2, and PA, and synthesizes three kinds of viral RNAs, vRNA, cRNA, and mRNA. PB1 is a catalytic subunit; PB2 recognizes the cap structure for generation of the primer for transcription; and PA is thought to be involved in viral RNA replication. However, the process of polymerase complex assembly and the exact nature of polymerase complexes involved in synthesis of the three different RNA species are not yet clear. ts53 virus is a temperature-sensitive (ts) mutant derived from A/WSN/33 (A. Sugiura, M. Ueda, K. Tobita, and C. Enomoto, Virology 65:363-373, 1975). We confirmed that the mRNA synthesis level of ts53 remains unaffected at the nonpermissive temperature, whereas vRNA synthesis is largely reduced. Sequencing of the gene encoding ts53 PA and recombinant virus rescue experiments revealed that an amino acid change from Leu to Pro at amino acid position 226 is causative of temperature sensitivity. By glycerol density gradient analyses of nuclear extracts prepared from wild-type virus-infected cells, we found that polymerase proteins sediment in three fractions: one (H fraction) consists of RNP complexes, another (M fraction) contains active polymerases but not viral RNA, and the other (L fraction) contains inactive forms of polymerases. Pulse-chase experiments showed that polymerases in the L fraction are converted to those in the M fraction. In ts53-infected cells, polymerases accumulated in the L fraction. These results strongly suggest that PA is involved in the assembly of functional viral RNA polymerase complexes from their inactive intermediates.
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PMID:Involvement of influenza virus PA subunit in assembly of functional RNA polymerase complexes. 1561 1

The use of influenza A virus-inducible reporter gene segments in detecting influenza A virus replication was investigated. The RNA polymerase I promoter/terminator cassette was used to express RNA transcripts encoding green fluorescence protein or firefly luciferase flanked by the untranslated regions of the influenza A/WSN/33 nucleoprotein (NP) segment. Reporter gene activity was detected after reconstitution of the influenza A virus polymerase complex from cDNA or after virus infection, and was influenza A virus-specific. Reporter gene activity could be detected as early as 6 h post-infection and was virus dose-dependent. Inhibitory effects of antibodies or amantadine could be detected and quantified rapidly, providing a means of not only identifying influenza A virus-specific replication, but also of determining the antigenic subtype as well as antiviral drug susceptibility. Induction of virus-specific reporter genes provides a rapid, sensitive method for detecting virus replication, quantifying virus titers and assessing antiviral sensitivity as well as antigenic subtype.
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PMID:Virus-inducible reporter genes as a tool for detecting and quantifying influenza A virus replication. 1584 14

Influenza virus RNA polymerase is a heterotrimeric complex consisting of PB1, PB2, and PA subunits. These polymerase subunits accumulate in the nucleus of infected cells. We report here that PB2, from both human and avian influenza viruses, could also localize to mitochondria in transfected cells. Importantly, cells infected with influenza A virus also displayed mitochondrial PB2. We show that an N-terminal motif composed of 120 amino acids is sufficient for localization of PB2 to mitochondria. In particular, leucine residues at positions 7 and 10 were essential for mitochondrial targeting. Recombinant influenza A/WSN/33 viruses expressing PB2 proteins with L7A and/or L10A mutations showed reduced viral titers, but unaffected levels of transcription, replication, and protein expression. The introduction of L7A and/or L10A mutations into recombinant viruses correlated with reduced mitochondrial membrane potential in infected cells, suggesting that mitochondrial localization of PB2 contributes to the preservation of mitochondrial function during influenza virus infection.
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PMID:Characterization of a mitochondrial-targeting signal in the PB2 protein of influenza viruses. 1624 67

Influenza A virus (IAV) replicates in the upper respiratory tract of humans at 33 degrees C and in the intestinal tract of birds at close to 41 degrees C. The viral RNA polymerase complex comprises three subunits (PA, PB1 and PB2) and plays an important role in host adaptation. We therefore developed an in vitro system to examine the temperature sensitivity of IAV RNA polymerase complexes from different origins. Complexes were prepared from human lung epithelial cells (A549) using a novel adenoviral expression system. Affinity-purified complexes were generated that contained either all three subunits (PA/PB1/PB2) from the A/Viet/1203/04 H5N1 virus (H/H/H) or the A/WSN/33 H1N1 strain (W/W/W). We also prepared chimeric complexes in which the PB2 subunit was exchanged (H/H/W, W/W/H) or substituted with an avian PB2 from the A/chicken/Nanchang/3-120/01 H3N2 strain (W/W/N). All complexes were functional in transcription, cap-binding and endonucleolytic activity. Complexes containing the H5N1 or Nanchang PB2 protein retained transcriptional activity over a broad temperature range (30-42 degrees C). In contrast, complexes containing the WSN PB2 protein lost activity at elevated temperatures (39 degrees C or higher). The E627K mutation in the avian PB2 was not required for this effect. Finally, the avian PB2 subunit was shown to confer enhanced stability to the WSN 3P complex. These results show that PB2 plays an important role in regulating the temperature optimum for IAV RNA polymerase activity, possibly due to effects on the functional stability of the 3P complex.
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PMID:The human H5N1 influenza A virus polymerase complex is active in vitro over a broad range of temperatures, in contrast to the WSN complex, and this property can be attributed to the PB2 subunit. 1900 77

A natural variation is observed at position 4 of the 3'-end of influenza A virus genomes, where U (U4) or C (C4) is present. The replicon activity of C4 was 28% of U4. We compared the transcription and replication activity of U4 [v84(U4)], C4 [v84(C4)] and the complimentary RNA (c84) using the purified influenza virus RNA polymerase in vitro. ApG-primed replication activities of v84(C4) and c84 were 23.8% and 7.8% of v84(U4). Globin mRNA-primed transcription activities of v84(C4) and c84 were 36.9% and 6.81% of v84(U4). De novo replication activities of v84(C4) and c84 were 21.3 and 10.2% of v84(U4). This difference came from their polymerase binding activity. When all the eight genome segments of WSN strain were changed to U4, the virus titer was 760 times higher than the wild type. However, its pathogenicity in mice was lower than the wild type.
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PMID:Influenza virus genome C4 promoter/origin attenuates its transcription and replication activity by the low polymerase recognition activity. 2095 10

The influenza A virus genome comprises eight segments of negative-sense RNA that encode up to 12 proteins. RNA segment 2 encodes three proteins, PB1, PB1-F2 and N40, that are translated from the same mRNA by ribosomal leaky scanning and reinitiation. PB1 is a subunit of the trimeric viral RNA polymerase. PB1-F2 has been reported to be a potential virulence factor, and has been shown to be involved in a number of activities including induction of apoptosis, regulation of virus replication and modulation of the immune response. No function has yet been ascribed to N40, which represents an N-terminally deleted form of PB1. Previous studies on PB1-F2 function mainly used viruses genetically engineered to prevent PB1-F2 expression by mutation of the PB1-F2 start codon. However, ablation of the start codon was shown to increase the expression level of the downstream protein N40. In the present study, we generated recombinant A/WSN/33 viruses carrying different combinations of PB1-F2- and N40-knockout mutations. Overexpression of N40 in a PB1-F2-deficient background had a detrimental effect on virus growth in vitro and in vivo. However, ablation of PB1-F2 or N40 expression individually was not disadvantageous for the virus. Primer-extension analyses revealed an increase in vRNA production by viruses that overexpressed N40. Our data suggest that the observed attenuation of mutant viruses in vitro and in vivo results from these changes in transcription and replication.
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PMID:Behaviour of influenza A viruses differentially expressing segment 2 gene products in vitro and in vivo. 2219 16

The influenza RNA polymerase complex, which consists of the three subunits PA, PB1, and PB2, is a promising target for the development of new antiviral drugs. A large library of benzofurazan compounds was synthesized and assayed against influenza virus A/WSN/33 (H1N1). Most of the new derivatives were found to act by inhibiting the viral RNA polymerase complex through disruption of the complex formed between subunits PA and PB1. Docking studies were also performed to elucidate the binding mode of benzofurazans within the PB1 binding site in PA and to identify amino acids involved in their mechanism of action. The predicted binding pose is fully consistent with the biological data and lays the foundation for the rational development of more effective PA-PB1 inhibitors.
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PMID:The fight against the influenza A virus H1N1: synthesis, molecular modeling, and biological evaluation of benzofurazan derivatives as viral RNA polymerase inhibitors. 2428 96

High-throughput sequencing (HTS) of viral samples provides important information on the presence of viral minority variants. However, detection and accurate quantification is limited by the capacity to distinguish biological from artificial variation. In this study, errors related to the Illumina HiSeq2000 library generation and HTS process were investigated by determining minority variant frequencies in an influenza A/WSN/1933(H1N1) virus reverse-genetics plasmid pool. Errors related to amplification and sequencing were determined using the same plasmid pool, by generation of infectious virus using reverse genetics followed by in duplo reverse-transcriptase PCR (RT-PCR) amplification and HTS in the same sequence run. Results showed that after "best practice" quality control (QC), within the plasmid pool, one minority variant with a frequency >0.5% was identified, while 84 and 139 were identified in the RT-PCR amplified samples, indicating RT-PCR amplification artificially increased variation. Detailed analysis showed that artifactual minority variants could be identified by two major technical characteristics: their predominant presence in a single read orientation and uneven distribution of mismatches over the length of the reads. We demonstrate that by addition of two QC steps 95% of the artifactual minority variants could be identified. When our analysis approach was applied to three clinical samples 68% of the initially identified minority variants were identified as artifacts. Our study clearly demonstrated that, without additional QC steps, overestimation of viral minority variants is very likely to occur, mainly as a consequence of the required RT-PCR amplification step. The improved ability to detect and correct for artifactual minority variants, increases data resolution and could aid both past and future studies incorporating HTS. The source code has been made available through Sourceforge (https://sourceforge.net/projects/mva-ngs).
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PMID:Improved detection of artifactual viral minority variants in high-throughput sequencing data. 2565 42


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