Shijun Li, Bing Liu, Min Tan, Franceline Juillard, Agnieszka Szymula, Ángel L Álvarez, Nicholas Van Sciver, Athira George, Akshaya Ramachandran, Komal Raina, Vinayak Sadasivam Tumuluri, Catarina N Costa, J Pedro Simas, Kenneth M Kaye
To establish lifelong, latent infection, herpesviruses circularize their linear, double-stranded, DNA genomes through an unknown mechanism. Kaposi's sarcoma (KS) herpesvirus (KSHV), a gamma herpesvirus, is tightly linked with KS, primary effusion lymphoma, and multicentric Castleman's disease. KSHV persists in latently infected cells as a multi-copy, extrachromosomal episome. Here, we show the KSHV genome rapidly circularizes following infection, and viral protein expression is unnecessary for this process...
January 5, 2024: Nucleic Acids Research