Project description:Synonymous recoding of viral genome can attenuate their replication, but can have pleiotropic effects, with multiple mechanisms contributing to attenuation. We set out to design recoded viral genomes whose attenuation was specific and conditional. The zinc finger antiviral protein (ZAP) recognizes CpG dinucleotides and targets CpG-rich RNAs for depletion, but RNA features such as CpG numbers, spacing and surrounding nucleotide composition that enable specific modulation by ZAP are undescribed. Using synonymously mutated HIV-1 genomes, we define several sequence features that govern ZAP sensitivity and stable attenuation. Using features defined using HIV-1, we then designed a mutant enterovirus A71 genome whose attenuation was also stable and strictly ZAP-dependent, both in cell culture and in mice. This conditionally attenuated enterovirus A71 elicited neutralizing antibodies that were protective against wild-type enterovirus 71 infection and disease. Elucidation of the determinants of ZAP sensitivity can thus enable the rational design of conditionally attenuated viral vaccines.
Project description:Evaluation of different strategies to interpret metaproteomics data acquired on soil samples from a floodplain along the Seine River (France) incorporating sample-specific metagenomics data, soil genome catalogue database, and generic sequence database.
2022-02-17 | PXD026798 | Pride
Project description:Genome sequences of Enterovirus from Guatemalan sewage, 2019-2021
Project description:With its 2.5 Mb DNA genome packed in amphora-shaped particles of bacterium-like dimension (1.2 µm in length, 0.5 µm in diameter), the Acanthamoeba-infecting Pandoravirus salinus remained the most spectacular and intriguing virus since its description in 2013. Following its isolation from shallow marine sediment off the coast of central Chile, that of its relative Pandoravirus dulcis from a fresh water pond near Melbourne, Australia, suggested that they were the first representatives of an emerging worldwide-distributed family of giant viruses. This was further suggested when P. inopinatum discovered in Germany, was sequenced in 2015. We now report the isolation and genome sequencing of three new strains (P. quercus, P.neocaledonia, P. macleodensis) from France, New Caledonia, and Australia. Using a combination of transcriptomic, proteomic, and bioinformatic analyses, we found that these six viruses share enough distinctive features to justify their classification in a new family, the Pandoraviridae, distinct from that of other large DNA viruses.