It has been proposed that some non-retroviral RNA virus genes are integrated into vertebrate genomes. Endogenous filovirus-like elements (EFLs) have been discovered in some mammalian genomes. However, their potential roles in ebolavirus infection are unclear. A filovirus VP35-like element (mlEFL35) is found in the little brown bat (Myotis lucifugus) genome. Putative mlEFL35-derived protein (mlE...

Here we report recovery of infectious Marburg virus (MARV) from a full-length cDNA clone. Compared to the wild-type virus, recombinant MARV showed no difference in terms of morphology of virus particles, intracellular distribution in infected cells, and growth kinetics. The nucleocapsid protein VP30 of MARV and Ebola virus (EBOV) contains a Zn-binding motif which is important for the function o...

The Dengue virus (DENV) genome contains multiple cis-acting elements required for translation and replication. Previous studies indicated that a 719-nt subgenomic minigenome (DENV-MINI) is an efficient template for translation and (-) strand RNA synthesis in vitro. We performed a detailed structural analysis of DENV-MINI RNA, combining chemical acylation techniques, Pb(2+) ion-induced hydrolysi...

The P protein of parainfluenza virus 5 (PIV5) is an essential cofactor of the viral RNA-dependent RNA polymerase. Phosphorylation of the P protein can positively or negatively regulate viral gene expression, depending on the precise phosphorylation sites. Sumoylation, a process of adding small ubiquitin-like modifier (SUMO) to proteins posttranslationally, plays an important role in regulating ...

Borna disease virus (BDV) is an enveloped virus. Its non-segmented, negative-stranded RNA genome has the coding capability for six main polypeptides and has an organization characteristic of members of the order Mononegavirales. However, based on its unique genetics and biological features, BDV is considered to be the prototypic member of a new virus family, Bornaviridae. Here, the establishmen...

Influenza A virus (IAV) poses significant threats to public health because of the recent emergence of highly pathogenic strains and wide-spread resistance to available anti-influenza drugs. Therefore, new antiviral targets and new drugs to fight influenza virus infections are needed. Although IAV RNA transcription/replication represents a promising target for antiviral drug development, no assa...

The development and implementation of arenavirus reverse genetics represents a significant breakthrough in the arenavirus field. The use of cell-based arenavirus minigenome systems together with the ability to generate recombinant infectious arenaviruses with predetermined mutations in their genomes has facilitated the investigation of the contribution of viral determinants to the different ste...

Many viruses use their host's cellular machinery to regulate the functions of viral proteins. The phosphorylation of viral proteins is known to play a role in genome transcription and replication in paramyxoviruses. The paramyxovirus nucleoprotein (N), the most abundant protein in infected cells, is a component of the N-RNA complex and supports the transcription and replication of virus mRNA an...

The 3' termini of the genomic and antigenomic RNAs of human respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) are identical at 10 of the first 11 nucleotide positions and 21 of the first 26 positions. These conserved 3'-terminal sequences are thought to contain the genomic and antigenomic promoters. Furthermore, the complement of each conserved sequence (i.e., the 5' end of the RNA it encodes) might contain an...