The knowledge on the life cycle of flaviviruses is still incomplete, and no direct-acting antivirals against their infections are clinically available. Herein, by screening via a Zika virus (ZIKV) replicon assay, we found that the N-terminus of NS2A exhibited great tolerance to the insertions of different split fluorescent proteins (split-FPs). Furthermore, both ZIKV and dengue virus encoding a split-FP-tagged NS2A propagated efficiently, and the split-FP-tagged ZIKVs had good genetic stability. Robust green fluorescence was observed in the reporter cell lines infected with these viruses and the fluorescence responded to anti-flavivirus chemicals with high specificity and sensitivity. Moreover, the sites of viral RNA replication were illuminated in live cells. Interestingly, by blocking viral RNA synthesis with an NS5 inhibitor, we found a correlation between the morphological characteristics of potential replication organelles and RNA amplification, highlighting that the NS2A-tagged viruses are of great value for the in-depth understanding of flavivirus replication mechanisms.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.virol.2024.110374 | DOI Listing |
Nat Commun
January 2025
Department of Developmental and Cell Biology, University of California, Irvine, CA, USA.
Functional analysis of non-coding variants associated with congenital disorders remains challenging due to the lack of efficient in vivo models. Here we introduce dual-enSERT, a robust Cas9-based two-color fluorescent reporter system which enables rapid, quantitative comparison of enhancer allele activities in live mice in less than two weeks. We use this technology to examine and measure the gain- and loss-of-function effects of enhancer variants previously linked to limb polydactyly, autism spectrum disorder, and craniofacial malformation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNat Chem Biol
January 2025
University of Innsbruck, Institute of Organic Chemistry and Center for Molecular Biosciences (CMBI), Innsbruck, Austria.
Covalent labeling of RNA in living cells poses many challenges. Here we describe a structure-guided approach to engineer covalent RNA aptamer-ligand complexes. The key is to modify the cognate ligand with an electrophilic handle that allows it to react with a guanine at the RNA binding site.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNat Chem Biol
January 2025
State Key Laboratory of Membrane Biology, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Tsinghua-Peking Center for Life Sciences, Key Laboratory of Bioorganic Phosphorous Chemistry and Chemical Biology (Ministry of Education), Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.
The E2 ubiquitin (Ub)-conjugating enzyme primarily determines Ub conjugation as Ub-isopeptide (lysine), Ub-oxyester (serine/threonine) or Ub-thioester (cysteine). However, E2-specific Ub conjugation profiles within cells remain elusive. Here we developed the fusion E2-Ub-R74G profiling (FUSEP) strategy to access E2-specific Ub conjugation profiles in cells with amino acid resolution.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNat Commun
January 2025
School of Food and Biological Engineering, Engineering Research Center of Bio-process, Ministry of Education, Key Laboratory of Animal Source of Anhui Province, Hefei University of Technology, Hefei, 230009, China.
Dissection of the physiological interactomes of histone post-translational modifications (hPTMs) is crucial for understanding epigenetic regulatory pathways. Peptide- or protein-based histone photoaffinity tools expanded the ability to probe the epigenetic interactome, but in situ profiling in native cells remains challenging. Here, we develop a nucleus-targeting histone-tail-based photoaffinity probe capable of profiling the hPTM-mediated interactomes in native cells, by integrating cell-permeable and nuclear localization peptide modules into an hPTM peptide equipped with a photoreactive moiety.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Vis Exp
December 2024
Departamento de Genética, Facultad de Biología, Universidad de Sevilla;
Live imaging methods allow the analysis of dynamic cellular processes in detail and in real-time. The Drosophila ovary represents an excellent model to explore the dynamics of a myriad of developmental processes, such as cell division, stemness, differentiation, migration, apoptosis, autophagy, cellular adhesion, etc., over time.
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