Publications by authors named "Nia E McCray"
Article Synopsis
- Alphaviruses, like chikungunya virus, rely on an error-prone RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (nsP4) for genome replication, but the full role of nsP4 in the virus life cycle is unclear.
- Researchers studied the significance of a key residue (C483) in nsP4 and created various nsP4 variants to explore their effects on viral replication in mammalian and mosquito cells.
- Their findings reveal that specific subdomains of nsP4 are critical for both RNA transcription and virion production, with temperature conditions impacting virus infectivity but enhancing replication and protein production in mammalian cells.
Alphaviruses encode an error-prone RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp), nsP4, required for genome synthesis, yet how the RdRp functions in the complete alphavirus life cycle is not well-defined. Previous work using chikungunya virus (CHIKV) has established the importance of the nsP4 residue cysteine 483 in maintaining viral genetic fidelity. Given the location of residue C483 in the nsP4 palm domain, we hypothesized that other residues within this domain and surrounding subdomains would also contribute to polymerase function.
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