
Viruses circulate predominantly in their natural reservoir host but frequently also infect other species. However, to establish a new lineage the virus has to adapt to the new environment by acquiring advantageous new mutations. These mutations also influence the secondary structure of the viral DNA and RNA, in turn affecting the replication process. ESR 8 will study the fundamental correlation between virus evolution and RNA secondary structures.
Being more specific, in case of segmented genomes (e.g. influenza A virus (IAV)) packaging is influenced by the secondary structure of the virus genomic RNA segments. In cells co-infected with different viruses, new variants with mixed genomes can emerge that have the potential to overcome the natural host species barrier and to cause a devastating pandemic. Mixing of viral segments, also designated genetic reassortment, is possible due to very efficient incorporation of different genome segments into one virus particle.
ESR 2 will systematically generate reassortant viruses between two human IAVs and select those that replicate most efficiently for further functional studies. Additionally, ESR 2 will use chemical probing to compare the genome structure in parental and those reassortant viruses. ESR 1 will study genetic reassortment events of IAV and especially the role of RNA-RNA interaction that is supposed to coordinate the interaction of the different genomes which are finally incorporated into viral particles. The focus of ESR 1 is to develop a computational tool that can predict the complex interplay of the RNA-RNA interaction required for genome packing between quite diverse IAV based on experimental data.
PhD Projects
Journal Articles
The influenza A virus genome packaging network - complex, flexible and yet unsolved Journal Article
In: Nucleic Acids Res., 2022.
ITN -- VIROINF: Understanding (Harmful) Virus-Host Interactions by Linking Virology and Bioinformatics Journal Article
In: Viruses, vol. 13, no. 5, pp. 766, 2021.
Presentations
Using high-throughput analysis to understand RNA-RNA interactions of Influenza Presentation
Talk at DiagnosTech Lecture, 29.04.2022.
Identification of RNA-RNA interactions that drive genetic reassortment between human H1N1 and H3N2 viruses Presentation
Oral presentation at 3rd ResaFlu meeting 2022, 13.04.2022.
Identification of RNA-RNA interactions that drive genetic reassortment between human H1N1 and H3N2 viruses Presentation
Poster at XXIVemes Journées Francophones de Virologie 2022, 11.04.2022.
RNAswarm: A pipeline for differential RNA-RNA Interaction probing Presentation
Oral poster at 31st Annual Meeting of the Society for Virology 2022, Munich, Germany, 30.03.2022.
Reproducible RNA-RNA interaction probing for RNA proximity ligation data with RNAswarm Presentation
Poster at International Virus Bioinformatics Meeting 2022, 24.03.2022, (Best Poster Award).