Parent Lab

Using single molecule detection methods and live-cell confocal imaging with super-resolution stimulated emission depletion (STED), we have visualized dynamic trafficking of RSV viral complexes. Our data suggest that RSV proteins capture viral RNA at the proviral transcriptional burst site in the nucleus. We are testing the hypothesis that retroviral RNAs are sorted co-transcriptionally to determine their fates as mRNA or genomic RNA, which is packaged into assembling virions released from the plasma membrane.

This project aims to characterize the spatiotemporal properties of HIV-1 Gag by examining how and where Gag localizes to the nucleus. Our studies indicate that Gag preferentiallylocalizes to the euchromatin, where active transcription occurs. We hypothesize that Gag localizes to active viral transcription sites to select for genomic RNA to package into new virions. Currently, we are investigating Gag’s hijacking of transcription machinery to facilitate retrovirus replication.

Retroviral Gag proteins perform the critical function of selecting and packaging two copies of unspliced viral RNA to serve as the genome for each nascent virion. Our lab discovered that RSV Gag traffics to the nucleus and colocalizes with nascent viral RNA at sites of transcription. We identified several components of RNA polymerase II-associated transcription machinery that associate with Gag proteins, supporting the novel hypothesis that RSV Gag hijacks transcription machinery to facilitate genomic RNA selection.