Cell Biology of Viral Infection Lab, Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência, 2780-156 Oeiras, Portugal.
School of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, University of Bristol, BS8 1TD, UK.
Viruses. 2021 Feb 25;13(3):366. doi: 10.3390/v13030366.
Viruses are highly dependent on the host they infect. Their dependence triggers processes of virus-host co-adaptation, enabling viruses to explore host resources whilst escaping immunity. Scientists have tackled viral-host interplay at differing levels of complexity-in individual hosts, organs, tissues and cells-and seminal studies advanced our understanding about viral lifecycles, intra- or inter-species transmission, and means to control infections. Recently, it emerged as important to address the physical properties of the materials in biological systems; membrane-bound organelles are only one of many ways to separate molecules from the cellular milieu. By achieving a type of compartmentalization lacking membranes known as biomolecular condensates, biological systems developed alternative mechanisms of controlling reactions. The identification that many biological condensates display liquid properties led to the proposal that liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS) drives their formation. The concept of LLPS is a paradigm shift in cellular structure and organization. There is an unprecedented momentum to revisit long-standing questions in virology and to explore novel antiviral strategies. In the first part of this review, we focus on the state-of-the-art about biomolecular condensates. In the second part, we capture what is known about RNA virus-phase biology and discuss future perspectives of this emerging field in virology.
病毒高度依赖于它们感染的宿主。它们的依赖性引发了病毒-宿主共同适应的过程，使病毒能够在逃避免疫的同时探索宿主资源。科学家们在不同的复杂程度上研究了病毒-宿主相互作用——在个体宿主、器官、组织和细胞中——开创性的研究增进了我们对病毒生命周期、种内或种间传播以及控制感染的手段的理解。最近，解决生物系统中材料的物理性质变得很重要；膜结合细胞器只是将分子与细胞环境分离的众多方法之一。通过实现一种缺乏膜的分隔类型，即生物分子凝聚物，生物系统开发了控制反应的替代机制。许多生物凝聚物表现出液体性质的发现，导致了液体-液体相分离（LLPS）驱动其形成的假说。LLPS 的概念是细胞结构和组织的范式转变。现在有一股前所未有的动力来重新审视病毒学中的长期问题，并探索新的抗病毒策略。在这篇综述的第一部分，我们关注生物分子凝聚物的最新进展。在第二部分，我们捕捉到了关于 RNA 病毒相生物学的已知信息，并讨论了这个新兴病毒学领域的未来展望。
