Birnaviruses are unconventional members of the icosahedral double-stranded (dsRNA) RNA virus group. The main differential birnavirus trait is the lack of the inner icosahedral transcriptional core, a ubiquitous structure conserved in all other icosahedral dsRNA viruses, that shelters the genome from cellular dsRNA sensors and provide the enzymatic machinery to produce and extrude mature messeng...

Yellow head virus (YHV) is an invertebrate nidovirus which causes a severe mortality in cultured Penaeus monodon. The mortality may be prevented by prior treatment of shrimps with YHV-protease dsRNA. Whether the YHV infected shrimp might be cured by the dsRNA remains to be investigated. P. monodon injected with 10(-6) YHV showed a high virus replication and mortality within 2 days. Injection of...

Virus particles and their component double-stranded ribonucleic acid (dsRNA) have been isolated from conidia and mycelia of certain Penicillium species. The conidia and mycelia of P. stoloniferum NRRL 5267 contained 75 and 85 mug of dsRNA/g (dry weight), respectively. Of the total dsRNA released from NRRL 5267 conidia, 10% was nonencapsulated. Conidia of P. brevi-compactum NRRL 5260 and P. chry...

RNA interference (RNAi) is triggered in eukaryotic organisms by double-stranded RNA (dsRNA), and it destroys any mRNA that has sequence identity with the dsRNA trigger. The RNAi pathway in Anopheles gambiae can be silenced by transfecting cells with dsRNA derived from exon sequence of the A. gambiae Argonaute2 (AgAgo2) gene. We hypothesized that RNAi may also act as an antagonist to alphavirus ...

Double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) viruses in some fungi are associated with hypovirulence and have been used or proposed as biological control agents. We isolated 7.5-kb dsRNAs from 13 of 286 field strains of Fusarium graminearum isolated from maize in Korea. One of these strains, DK21, was examined in more detail. This strain had pronounced morphological changes, including reduction in mycelial grow...

RNA viruses of filamentous fungi fall into two broad categories, those that contain double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) genomes in rigid particles and those that are more closely related to positive-sense, single-stranded RNA viruses with dsRNA replicative intermediates found within lipid vesicles. Effective infectivity systems have been described for the latter, using RNA transcripts, but not for the ...

In response to virus infection or treatment with dsRNA, macrophages express the inducible form of cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) and produce proinflammatory prostaglandins. Recently, we have shown that NF-kappaB is required for encephalomyocarditis virus (EMCV)- and dsRNA-stimulated COX-2 expression in mouse macrophages. The dsRNA-dependent protein kinase R is not required for EMCV-stimulated COX-2 e...

The virus-host interactions that influence hepatitis C virus (HCV) replication are largely unknown but are thought to involve those that disrupt components of the innate intracellular antiviral response. Here we examined cellular antiviral pathways that are triggered during HCV RNA replication. We report that (i) RNA replication of HCV subgenomic replicons stimulated double-stranded RNA (dsRNA)...

In in vitro reactions, the Helminthosporium victoriae 190S virus-associated RNA polymerase catalysed the synthesis and release of full-length ssRNA transcripts of genomic dsRNA. The transcriptase activity, which was dependent on virus concentration, required all four nucleoside triphosphates and magnesium ions. In reaction mixtures containing [3 H]UTP, 99-0 ~ to 99.5 ~o of the incorporated labe...

The ascomycete Botrytis porri causes clove rot and leaf blight of garlic worldwide. We report here the biological and molecular features of a novel bipartite double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) mycovirus named Botrytis porri RNA virus 1 (BpRV1) from the hypovirulent strain GarlicBc-72 of B. porri. The BpRV1 genome comprises two dsRNAs, dsRNA-1 (6,215 bp) and dsRNA-2 (5,879 bp), which share sequence ide...