Rotavirus outsources cellular protein to assemble virus factories

Rotaviruses, like all viruses, reproduce inside living cells. Making new viruses requires assembling replication factories via a complex, little known process that involves both viral and cellular components. A report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by a multidisciplinary team led by researchers at Baylor College of Medicine reveals that the formation of rotavirus factories depends on a cellular protein called CK1α, which chemically modifies viral component NSP2, thus triggering its localization and assembly into the virus factory, an essential step in the formation of new viruses. “One of the interests of our labs is to better understand the process of assembling rotavirus factories,” said first co-author Dr. Jeanette M. Criglar, staff scientist of molecular virology and microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine and a graduate of the program. In the process of investigating this, Criglar and her colleagues discovered that a cellular protein called CK1α is required to...