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Viral Pathogenesis

Cuckoos in an innate nest

Nature Reviews Microbiology volume 3, page 523 (2005)Cite this article

Upon infection of a eukaryotic cell with a positive-strand RNA virus, dramatic reorganization of cellular membranes takes place, which results in the formation of internal membrane structures that viruses use as a scaffold to replicate their RNA. Poliovirus infection induces the formation of 200–400 nm double-membrane vesicles, which accumulate in the cytoplasm and are associated with replicating viral RNA. Reasons for the replication of viral genomic RNA on membranes might include facilitating the oligomerization and function of replicative proteins or enabling rapid replication before labile viral RNA is degraded.

Autophagy is thought to be conserved in yeast and humans. Autophagosomes either form de novo or are pinched off from the endoplasmic reticulum. Despite the paucity of proteins present in double-membrane autophagosomes, the authors showed that the virally induced membranes had several cell biological and immunomicroscopic hallmarks of bona fide autophagosomes. Perturbing the autophagosome pathway with drugs and RNA interference allowed them to determine whether the vesicles associated with poliovirus and rhinovirus infection might be autophagosomes.

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References

ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPER

  1. Jackson, W.T. et al. Subversion of cellular autophagosomal machinery by RNA viruses. PloS Biol. 3, e156 (2005)

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FURTHER READING

  1. Kirkegaard, K., Taylor, M. P. & Jackson W. T. Cellular autophagy: surrender, avoidance and subversion by microorganisms. Nature Rev. Microbiol. 2, 301–314 (2004)

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Authors
  1. Susan Jones
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Jones, S. Cuckoos in an innate nest. Nat Rev Microbiol 3, 523 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrmicro1200

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrmicro1200

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