Filomatori Claudia V, Merwaiss Fernando, Bardossy Eugenia S, Alvarez Diego E
Instituto de Investigaciones Biotecnológicas, Universidad Nacional de San Martín-CONICET, Argentina.
Instituto de Investigaciones Biotecnológicas, Universidad Nacional de San Martín-CONICET, Argentina.
Semin Cell Dev Biol. 2021 Mar;111:148-155. doi: 10.1016/j.semcdb.2020.07.006. Epub 2020 Jul 11.
Alphaviruses such as chikungunya and western equine encephalitis viruses are important human pathogens transmitted by mosquitoes that have recently caused large epidemic and epizootic outbreaks. The epidemic potential of alphaviruses is often related to enhanced mosquito transmission. Tissue barriers and antiviral responses impose bottlenecks to viral populations in mosquitoes. Substitutions in the envelope proteins and the presence of repeated sequence elements (RSEs) in the 3'UTR of epidemic viruses were proposed to be specifically associated to efficient replication in mosquito vectors. Here, we discuss the molecular mechanisms that originated RSEs, the evolutionary forces that shape the 3'UTR of alphaviruses, and the significance of RSEs for mosquito transmission. Finally, the presence of RSEs in the 3'UTR of viral genomes appears as evolutionary trait associated to mosquito adaptation and emerges as a common feature among viruses from the alphavirus and flavivirus genera.
诸如基孔肯雅病毒和西部马脑炎病毒之类的甲病毒是由蚊子传播的重要人类病原体，最近已引发大规模的流行和动物疫情爆发。甲病毒的流行潜力通常与蚊子传播能力增强有关。组织屏障和抗病毒反应对蚊子体内的病毒种群构成了瓶颈。有人提出，包膜蛋白中的替代以及流行病毒3'非翻译区（UTR）中重复序列元件（RSE）的存在与在蚊子载体中的高效复制特别相关。在这里，我们讨论了产生RSE的分子机制、塑造甲病毒3'UTR的进化力量以及RSE对蚊子传播的意义。最后，病毒基因组3'UTR中RSE的存在似乎是与蚊子适应性相关的进化特征，并成为甲病毒属和黄病毒属病毒的共同特征。
