Protein priming is an important mechanism that many viruses use to initiate genomic DNA or RNA synthesis. Birnaviruses are the only double-stranded (ds) RNA viruses that use protein priming. The viral-encoded VP1 of birnavirus functions as both a polymerase and a protein primer and is able to undergo self-guanylylation to acquire a covalently linked rGMP. By employing biochemical assays using r...

During February 2000, two trout farms, situated in NW Greece, reported unusually high losses of hatchery reared rainbow trout fry and fingerlings. Live fish and chilled samples of diseased whole fish were delivered to a veterinary laboratory in Athens for diagnostic investigation. Infections with the fungus Ichthyophonus hoferi as well as the Gram negative bacterium Aeromonas hydrophila were di...

Double-stranded RNA virions are transcriptionally competent icosahedral particles that must translocate across a lipid bilayer to function within the cytoplasm of the target cell. Birnaviruses are unique among dsRNA viruses as they have a single T = 13 icosahedral shell, lacking the characteristic inner capsid observed in the others. We determined the crystal structures of the T = 1 subviral pa...

background: aquatic insects are very abundant and divers groups of insects that are associated with an aquatic or semiaquatic environment in one or more of their life stages. these insects have been, in some cases, well studied because they are vectors of several diseases. this is the first comprehensive faunistic study of aquatic insects from babol county. the results may provide basic data fo...

We have identified a region related to the protease domain of bacterial and organelle ATP-dependent Lon proteases in virus protein 4 (VP4) of infectious bursal disease virus strain P2 (IBDVP2), a two-segmented double-stranded RNA virus. Unlike canonical Lons, IBDVP2 VP4 possesses a proteinase activity though it lacks an ATPase domain. Ser652 and Lys692 of IBDVP2 VP4 are conserved across the Lon...