Chloroviruses Have a Sweet Tooth

Authors

James L. Van Etten, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
Irina V. Agarkova, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
David D. Dunigan, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
Michela Tonetti, University of GenovaFollow
Cristina De Castro, University of NapoliFollow
Garry A. Duncan, Nebraska Wesleyan UniversityFollow

Date of this Version

2017

Citation

Viruses 2017, 9, 88; doi:10.3390/v9040088

Comments

Copyright © 2017, the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. Open access, Creative Commons Attribution license 4.0.

Abstract

Chloroviruses are large double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) viruses that infect certain isolates of chlorella-like green algae. They contain up to approximately 400 protein-encoding genes and 16 transfer RNA (tRNA) genes. This review summarizes the unexpected finding that many of the chlorovirus genes encode proteins involved in manipulating carbohydrates. These include enzymes involved in making extracellular polysaccharides, such as hyaluronan and chitin, enzymes that make nucleotide sugars, such as GDP-L-fucose and GDP-D-rhamnose and enzymes involved in the synthesis of glycans attached to the virus major capsid proteins. This latter process differs from that of all other glycoprotein containing viruses that traditionally use the host endoplasmic reticulum and Golgi machinery to synthesize and transfer the glycans.