Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics, Washington University in St Louis, 660 St Euclid Ave, 63110 Saint Louis, MO, USA; Center for Biomolecular Condensates, Washington University in St Louis, 1 Brookings Drive, 63130 Saint Louis, MO, USA.
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics, Washington University in St Louis, 660 St Euclid Ave, 63110 Saint Louis, MO, USA; Center for Biomolecular Condensates, Washington University in St Louis, 1 Brookings Drive, 63130 Saint Louis, MO, USA.
J Mol Biol. 2023 Aug 15;435(16):167988. doi: 10.1016/j.jmb.2023.167988. Epub 2023 Jan 26.
The past decade has seen a revolution in our understanding of how the cellular environment is organized, where an incredible body of work has provided new insights into the role played by membraneless organelles. These rapid advancements have been made possible by an increasing awareness of the peculiar physical properties that give rise to such bodies and the complex biology that enables their function. Viral infections are not extraneous to this. Indeed, in host cells, viruses can harness existing membraneless compartments or, even, induce the formation of new ones. By hijacking the cellular machinery, these intracellular bodies can assist in the replication, assembly, and packaging of the viral genome as well as in the escape of the cellular immune response. Here, we provide a perspective on the fundamental polymer physics concepts that may help connect and interpret the different observed phenomena, ranging from the condensation of viral genomes to the phase separation of multicomponent solutions. We complement the discussion of the physical basis with a description of biophysical methods that can provide quantitative insights for testing and developing theoretical and computational models.
过去十年见证了我们对细胞环境如何组织的理解的一场革命，大量的工作为无膜细胞器所起的作用提供了新的见解。这些快速进展得益于人们对产生这些细胞器的特殊物理性质以及使它们发挥功能的复杂生物学的认识不断提高。病毒感染与此并不无关。事实上，在宿主细胞中，病毒可以利用现有的无膜隔室，甚至可以诱导新的隔室形成。通过劫持细胞机制，这些细胞内体可以协助病毒基因组的复制、组装和包装，以及逃避细胞免疫反应。在这里，我们提供了一个视角，探讨可能有助于连接和解释不同观察到的现象的基本聚合物物理概念，范围从病毒基因组的凝聚到多组分溶液的相分离。我们用描述生物物理方法来补充对物理基础的讨论，这些方法可以为测试和开发理论和计算模型提供定量见解。
