Representing virus-host interactions and other multi-organism processes in the Gene Ontology

BACKGROUND

The Gene Ontology project is a collaborative effort to provide descriptions of gene products in a consistent and computable language, and in a species-independent manner. The Gene Ontology is designed to be applicable to all organisms but up to now has been largely under-utilized for prokaryotes and viruses, in part because of a lack of appropriate ontology terms.

METHODS

To address this issue, we have developed a set of Gene Ontology classes that are applicable to microbes and their hosts, improving both coverage and quality in this area of the Gene Ontology. Describing microbial and viral gene products brings with it the additional challenge of capturing both the host and the microbe. Recognising this, we have worked closely with annotation groups to test and optimize the GO classes, and we describe here a set of annotation guidelines that allow the controlled description of two interacting organisms.

CONCLUSIONS

Building on the microbial resources already in existence such as ViralZone, UniProtKB keywords and MeGO, this project provides an integrated ontology to describe interactions between microbial species and their hosts, with mappings to the external resources above. Housing this information within the freely-accessible Gene Ontology project allows the classes and annotation structure to be utilized by a large community of biologists and users.

The complete Mokola virus genome sequence: structure of the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase

The genome sequence of the rabies-related virus Mokola virus (genus Lyssavirus) has been completed by sequencing the L gene, which consists of 6384 nucleotides encoding a 2127 amino acid polymerase. Alignment of the Mokola virus L protein with other polymerases from the virus order Mononegavirales defined three domains: a divergent NH2-terminal domain, a highly conserved central domain carrying most of the functional motifs and a COOH-terminal domain with alternating conserved and divergent regions. A statistical study outlined the stringency of conservation of glycine, acidic (D, E) and basic (K, R, H) amino acids in polymerases, particularly as key residues of the conserved motifs.

Comparison of picornaviral IRES-driven internal initiation of translation in cultured cells of different origins

We recently compared the efficiency of six picornaviral internal ribosome entry segments (IRESes) and the hepatitis C virus (HCV) IRES for their ability to drive internal initiation of translationin vitro. Here we present the results of a similar comparison performed in six different cultured cell lines infected with a recombinant vaccinia virus expressing the T7 polymerase and transfected with dicistronic plasmids. The IRESes could be divided into three groups: (i) the cardiovirus and aphthovirus IRESes (and the HCV element) direct internal initiation efficiently in all cell lines tested; (ii) the enterovirus and rhinovirus IRESes are at least equally efficient in several cell lines, but are extremely inefficient in certain cell types; and (iii) the hepatitis A virus IRES is incapable of directing efficient internal initiation in any of the cell lines used (including human hepatocytes). These are the same three groups found when IRESes were classified according to their activitiesin vitro, or according to sequence homologies. In a mouse neuronal cell line, the poliovirus and other type I IRESes were not functional in an artificial bicistronic context. However, infectious poliovirions were produced efficiently after transfection of these cells with a genomic length RNA. Furthermore, activity of the type I IRESes was dramatically increased upon co-expression of the poliovirus 2A proteinase, demonstrating that while IRES efficiency may vary considerably from one cell type to another, at least in some cases viral proteins are capable of overcoming cell-specific translational defects.