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Innate immune defenses are essential for the control of virus infection and are triggered through host recognition of viral macromolecular motifs known as pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs) 1. Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is an RNA virus that replicates in the liver, and infects 200 million people 2. Infection is governed by hepatic immune defenses triggered by the cellular RIG-I helicase. RIG-I binds PAMP RNA and signals IRF-3 activation to induce the expression of α/β interferon (IFN) and antiviral/interferon-stimulated genes (ISGs) that limit infection 3 -10. Here we identified the poly-uridine motif of the HCV genome 3' nontranslated region (NTR) as the PAMP substrate of RIG-I, and show that this and similar homopoly-uridine motifs present in the genome of RNA viruses is the chief feature of RIG-I recognition and immune triggering 8. 5' terminal triphosphate on the PAMP RNA was necessary but not sufficient for RIG-I binding, which was primarily dependent upon homopolymeric ribonucleotide composition, linear structure and length. The HCV PAMP RNA stimulated RIG-I-dependent signaling to induce a hepatic innate immune response in vivo, and triggered IFN and ISG expression to suppress HCV infection in vitro. These results provide a conceptual advance by identifying homopoly-uridine motfis present in the genome of HCV and other RNA viruses as the PAMP substrate of RIG-I, and define immunogenic features of the PAMP/RIG-I interaction that could be utilized as an immune adjuvant for vaccine and immunotherapy approaches.To determine the nature of the HCV PAMP RNA we conducted a functional screen to identify possible HCV PAMP RNA motifs. We assessed the ability of full length HCV genome RNA or contiguous HCV RNA segments to trigger the IFN-β promoter in transfected Huh7 cells. The full-length HCV genome RNA triggered innate immune signaling to induce the IFN-β promoter (Fig. 1a). Two regions of the HCV RNA, encoding nt 2406-3256 and nt 8872-9616, stimulated significant induction of the IFN-β promoter (Fig. 1b) with signaling activity respectively localized to nt 2406-2696 of the open reading frame and nt 9389-9619 encoding the 3' NTR (Fig.1c). Deletion of nt 9389-9619 but not nt 2408-2663 from the HCV genome significantly attenuated signaling to the IFN-β promoter (Fig 1d). PAMP motifs are typically conserved among strains of a pathogen 1 , and sequence comparison of multiple HCV genomes revealed global variability within nt 2406-3696 among virus strains but nt 9389-9616 encoded motifs of high conservation (Fig. S1) Thus, the viral 3' NTR might encode HCV PAMP motifs that trigger innate immune signaling in the host cell.The HCV 3' NTR is comprised of three regions: a variable region (VR) with potential secondary structure, a nonstructured poly-U/UC region containing polyuridine with interspersed ribocytidine, and the terminal X region containing three conserved stem-loop structures (Fig. 1e) 12 . We evaluated the ability of RNA encoding the HCV 3' NTR or each of its regions to trigger intracellular si...

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The tomato is an excellent model for studies of plants bearing berry-type fruits and for experimental studies of the Solanaceae family of plants due to its conserved genetic organization. In this study, a comprehensive mutant tomato population was generated in the background of Micro-Tom, a dwarf, rapid-growth variety. In this and previous studies, a family including 8,598 and 6,422 M2 mutagenized lines was produced by ethylmethane sulfonate (EMS) mutagenesis and γ-ray irradiation, and this study developed and investigated these M2 plants for alteration of visible phenotypes. A total of 9,183 independent M2 families comprising 91,830 M2 plants were inspected for phenotypic alteration, and 1,048 individual mutants were isolated. Subsequently, the observed mutant phenotypes were classified into 15 major categories and 48 subcategories. Overall, 1,819 phenotypic categories were found in 1,048 mutants. Of these mutants, 549 were pleiotropic, whereas 499 were non-pleiotropic. Multiple different mutant alleles per locus were found in the mutant libraries, suggesting that the mutagenized populations were nearly saturated. Additionally, genetic analysis of backcrosses indicated the successful inheritance of the mutations in BC1F2 populations, confirming the reproducibility in the morphological phenotyping of the M2 plants. To integrate and manage the visible phenotypes of mutants and other associated data, we developed the in silico database TOMATOMA, a relational system interfacing modules between mutant line names and phenotypic categories. TOMATOMA is a freely accessible database, and these mutant recourses are available through the TOMATOMA (http://tomatoma.nbrp.jp/index.jsp).

To accelerate functional genomic research in tomato, we developed a Micro-Tom TILLING (Targeting Induced Local Lesions In Genomes) platform. DNA pools were constructed from 3,052 ethyl methanesulfonate (EMS) mutant lines treated with 0.5 or 1.0% EMS. The mutation frequency was calculated by screening 10 genes. The 0.5% EMS population had a mild mutation frequency of one mutation per 1,710 kb, whereas the 1.0% EMS population had a frequency of one mutation per 737 kb, a frequency suitable for producing an allelic series of mutations in the target genes. The overall mutation frequency was one mutation per 1,237 kb, which affected an average of three alleles per kilobase screened. To assess whether a Micro-Tom TILLING platform could be used for efficient mutant isolation, six ethylene receptor genes in tomato (SlETR1–SlETR6) were screened. Two allelic mutants of SlETR1 (Sletr1-1 and Sletr1-2) that resulted in reduced ethylene responses were identified, indicating that our Micro-Tom TILLING platform provides a powerful tool for the rapid detection of mutations in an EMS mutant library. This work provides a practical and publicly accessible tool for the study of fruit biology and for obtaining novel genetic material that can be used to improve important agronomic traits in tomato.

Retinoic acid–inducible gene (RIG)-I–like receptors (RLRs) are cytosolic RNA helicases that sense viral RNA and trigger signaling pathways that induce the production of type I interferons (IFNs) and proinflammatory cytokines. RLRs recognize distinct and overlapping sets of viruses, but the mechanisms that dictate this specificity were unknown. A new study now provides evidence for size-based discrimination of double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) by RLRs and suggests how host cells recognize a variety of RNA viruses.

Triggering and propagating an intracellular innate immune response is essential for control of viral infections. RNase L is a host endoribonuclease and a pivotal component of innate immunity that cleaves viral and cellular RNA within single-stranded loops releasing small structured RNAs with 59-hydroxyl (59-OH) and 39-monophosphoryl (39-p) groups. In 2007, we reported that RNase L cleaves self RNA to produce small RNAs that function as pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs). However, the precise sequence and structure of PAMP RNAs produced by RNase L is unknown. Here we used hepatitis C virus RNA as substrate to characterize RNase L mediated cleavage products [named suppressor of virus RNA (svRNA)] for their ability to activate RIG-I like receptors (RLR). The NS5B region of HCV RNA was cleaved by RNase L to release an svRNA that bound to RIG-I, displacing its repressor domain and stimulating its ATPase activity while signaling to the IFN-b gene in intact cells. All three of these RIG-I functions were dependent on the presence in svRNA of the 39-p. Furthermore, svRNA suppressed HCV replication in vitro through a mechanism involving IFN production and triggered a RIG-I-dependent hepatic innate immune response in mice. RNase L and OAS (required for its activation) were both expressed in hepatocytes from HCV-infected patients, raising the possibility that the OAS/RNase L pathway might suppress HCV replication in vivo. It is proposed that RNase L mediated cleavage of HCV RNA generates svRNA that activates RIG-I, thus propagating innate immune signaling to the IFN-b gene.

AbstractmlrA is the only microcystin-degrading gene detected in Sphingomonas sp. MJ-PV. The gene has an extremely rare nucleotide sequence and homologous genes have not yet been discovered in the DNA database. We discovered the existence of a gene homologous to mlrA in new microcystin-degrading bacteria, MD-1 and Y2. These strains possessed mlrA homologues, and the identities of the genes of MD-1 and Y2 with the corresponding MJ-PV exceeded 98% and 84%, respectively. On the other hand, the mlrA gene was not detected in laboratory strains of the closely related Sphingomonas spp. strains employing hemi-nested polymerase chain reaction detection using two primer sets. Although the microcystin-degrading bacteria were closely related strains, they did not cluster together as the same species. We can conclude that the mlrA gene is conserved in three different bacterial species, and it is unique to microcystin degraders but not to the genus Sphingomonas.