The Wistar Institute, Philadelphia, PA 19104, United States.
Curr Opin Virol. 2013 Jun;3(3):251-9. doi: 10.1016/j.coviro.2013.03.004. Epub 2013 Apr 16.
The gammaherpesviruses are unique for their capacity to establish a variety of gene expression programs during latent and lytic infection. This capacity enables the virus to control host-cell proliferation, prevent programmed cell death, elude immune cell detection, and ultimately adapt to a wide range of environmental and developmental changes in the host cell. This remarkable plasticity of gene expression results from the combined functionalities of viral and host factors that biochemically remodel and epigenetically modify the viral chromosome. These epigenetic modifications range from primary DNA methylations, to chromatin protein post-translational modifications, to higher-order chromosome conformations. In addition, gammaherpesviruses have acquired specialized tools to modulate the epigenetic processes that promote viral genome propagation and host-cell survival.
γ疱疹病毒的独特之处在于其在潜伏和裂解感染期间能够建立多种基因表达程序。这种能力使病毒能够控制宿主细胞的增殖、防止程序性细胞死亡、逃避免疫细胞的检测，并最终适应宿主细胞中广泛的环境和发育变化。这种基因表达的显著可塑性源于病毒和宿主因子的共同功能，这些因子通过生化重塑和表观遗传修饰病毒染色体。这些表观遗传修饰包括初级 DNA 甲基化、染色质蛋白翻译后修饰以及高级染色体构象。此外，γ疱疹病毒还获得了专门的工具来调节促进病毒基因组复制和宿主细胞存活的表观遗传过程。
