Advances and Breakthroughs in IRES-Directed Translation and Replication of Picornaviruses

• Published in: mBio Vol. 14; no. 2; p. e0035823
• Main Authors: Abdullah, Sahibzada Waheed, Wu, Jin'en, Wang, Xuefei, Guo, Huichen, Sun, Shiqi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States American Society for Microbiology 25-04-2023
• Subjects: Animals; Foot-and-Mouth Disease Virus - physiology; Hepatitis A virus - metabolism; Host-Microbial Interactions; Humans; Internal Ribosome Entry Sites; IRES; ITAFs; Minireview; Picornaviridae; Picornaviridae - genetics; Protein Biosynthesis; Ribosomes - genetics; Ribosomes - metabolism; RNA, Viral - metabolism; translation; virus replication; ITAFs; translation; IRES; Picornaviridae; virus replication
• ISSN: 2150-7511; 2150-7511
• DOI: 10.1128/mbio.00358-23

Viruses lack the properties to replicate independently due to the limited resources encoded in their genome; therefore, they hijack the host cell machinery to replicate and survive. Picornaviruses get the prerequisite for effective protein synthesis through specific sequences known as internal ribosome entry sites (IRESs). In the past 2 decades, significant progress has been made in identifying different types of IRESs in picornaviruses. This review will discuss the past and current findings related to the five different types of IRESs and various internal ribosome entry site
-acting factors (ITAFs) that either promote or suppress picornavirus translation and replication. Some IRESs are inefficient and thus require ITAFs. To achieve their full efficiency, they recruit various ITAFs, which enable them to translate more effectively and efficiently, except type IV IRES, which does not require any ITAFs. Although there are two kinds of ITAFs, one promotes viral IRES-dependent translation, and the second type restricts. Picornaviruses IRESs are classified into five types based on their use of sequence, ITAFs, and initiation factors. Some ITAFs regulate IRES activity by localizing to the viral replication factories in the cytoplasm. Also, some drugs, chemicals, and herbal extracts also regulate viral IRES-dependent translation and replication. Altogether, this review will elaborate on our understanding of the past and recent advancements in the IRES-dependent translation and replication of picornaviruses.
The family
is divided into 68 genera and 158 species. The viruses belonging to this family range from public health importance, such as poliovirus, enterovirus A71, and hepatitis A virus, to animal viruses of great economic importance, such as foot-and-mouth disease virus. The genomes of picornaviruses contain 5' untranslated regions (5' UTRs), which possess crucial and highly structured stem-loops known as IRESs. IRES assemble the ribosomes and facilitate the cap-independent translation. Virus-host interaction is a hot spot for researchers, which warrants deep insight into understanding viral pathogenesis better and discovering new tools and ways for viral restriction to improve human and animal health. The cap-independent translation in the majority of picornaviruses is modulated by ITAFs, which bind to various IRES regions to initiate the translation. The discoveries of ITAFs substantially contributed to understanding viral replication behavior and enhanced our knowledge about virus-host interaction more effectively than ever before. This review discussed the various types of IRESs found in
, past and present discoveries regarding ITAFs, and their mechanism of action. The herbal extracts, drugs, and chemicals, which indicated their importance in controlling viruses, were also summarized. In addition, we discussed the movement of ITAFs from the nucleus to viral replication factories. We believe this review will stimulate researchers to search for more novel ITAFs, drugs, herbal extracts, and chemicals, enhancing the understanding of virus-host interaction.