preview

Replication Of The Viral Dsdna

Decent Essays

LYTIC INFECTION
Once the viral dsDNA has entered the nucleus, if it circularizes itself and becomes an episome within the nucleus, then the virus has entered a lytic life cycle. EBV replication takes place in specialized sites within the host nucleus, referred to as replication compartments8. It is believed that EBV replicates following the rolling circle replication model1. Figure 3 demonstrates how RCR works: after being cut with an endonuclease one strand is replicated continuously and the other is replicated discontinuously, putting together segments called linear concatamers and they code for circular DNA. Once EBV replication has begun the three stages of transcription begin to follow.
EBV, along with some other viruses, transcribe their DNA in a very regulated and temporal fashion. These stages, or sets of genes, are called the immediate early (IE) genes, early (E) genes, and late (L) genes. The tegument protein VP16 helps initiate the transcription of the IE genes, which code for DNA binding proteins that will be useful for the remaining steps of transcription1. E genes codes for proteins necessary for vDNA replication as well as other helpful proteins for transcription and L genes code for structural proteins that aren’t needed until after viral replication has started1. As IE and E genes are replicated and transcribed they are exported to the cell cytoplasm for translation and the appropriate proteins are brought back into the nucleus to aid in transcription or

Get Access