See How the Herpes Virus Reshapes Our Cells’ DNA in Just Eight Hours
Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
New imaging tools reveal how the virus alters our chromosomes to kick-start its own replication
The herpesvirus can manipulate our DNA with far more precision than previously thought.
The virus condenses and changes the shape of our genetic material to hijack the host genes needed for replication, researchers report June 19 in Nature Communications. The study is the first to leverage new, cutting-edge visualization tools to understand how this process occurs, offering a clear view of cellular changes within hours of infection.
Herpes simplex virus (HSV-1), the microbial culprit behind oral herpes, infects up to 67 percent of adults under 50 worldwide, although most cases are asymptomatic. Like all viruses, HSV-1 requires a host to replicate, transforming each cell it enters into a virus-producing factory.
Scientists have observed that when HSV-1 infects our cells, our chromosomes begin to warp and condense, shifting to the periphery of the nucleus to make space for the virus's many copies. It has been unclear whether this process is intentional or simply a by-product of the virus's invasion. We've never had the technology to image cells at a fine enough resolution to look closer," says Maria Pia Cosma, a synthetic biologist at the Centre for Genomic Regulation in Barcelona.
Advances in super-resolution microscopy have now made this possible. Cosma and her colleagues were able to image cells up to eight hours post-infection, including structures just 20 nanometers wide.
The scientists found that within an hour of infection, HSV-1 co-opts two genes - RNA polymerase II (RNAP 2) and DNA topoisomerase (TOP1) - that compact the host's chromatin into super-dense bundles. Chromatin is the DNA-protein complex that, when condensed, forms our chromosomes. The virus then reshapes the architecture of the chromatin, similar to folding origami, to bring itself into contact with loops of DNA containing the host genes needed for viral replication.
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