Varicella-zoster virus VLT-ORF63 fusion transcript induces broad viral gene expression during reactivation from neuronal latency

Werner J. D. Ouwendijk, Daniel P. Depledge, Labchan Rajbhandari, Tihana Lenac Rovis, Stipan Jonjic, Judith Breuer, Arun Venkatesan, Georges M. G. M. Verjans and Tomohiko Sadaoka ()
Additional contact information
Werner J. D. Ouwendijk: Erasmus Medical Centre
Daniel P. Depledge: New York University School of Medicine
Labchan Rajbhandari: Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Tihana Lenac Rovis: University of Rijeka
Stipan Jonjic: University of Rijeka
Judith Breuer: University College London
Arun Venkatesan: Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Georges M. G. M. Verjans: Erasmus Medical Centre
Tomohiko Sadaoka: Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine

Nature Communications, 2020, vol. 11, issue 1, 1-12

Abstract: Abstract Varicella-zoster virus (VZV) establishes lifelong neuronal latency in most humans world-wide, reactivating in one-third to cause herpes zoster and occasionally chronic pain. How VZV establishes, maintains and reactivates from latency is largely unknown. VZV transcription during latency is restricted to the latency-associated transcript (VLT) and RNA 63 (encoding ORF63) in naturally VZV-infected human trigeminal ganglia (TG). While significantly more abundant, VLT levels positively correlated with RNA 63 suggesting co-regulated transcription during latency. Here, we identify VLT-ORF63 fusion transcripts and confirm VLT-ORF63, but not RNA 63, expression in human TG neurons. During in vitro latency, VLT is transcribed, whereas VLT-ORF63 expression is induced by reactivation stimuli. One isoform of VLT-ORF63, encoding a fusion protein combining VLT and ORF63 proteins, induces broad viral gene transcription. Collectively, our findings show that VZV expresses a unique set of VLT-ORF63 transcripts, potentially involved in the transition from latency to lytic VZV infection.

Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-20031-4 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:11:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-020-20031-4

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-20031-4

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().