engleski

General Properties of Adenoviruses : Virus Structure and its Molecular Biology

Human adenoviruses cause respiratory, ocular and enteric diseases. Since the first isolation of adenovirus in 1953, 51 different serotypes of human adenoviruses have been isolated. The adenoviral virion is a non-enveloped icosahedral particle composed of 12 distinct polypeptides and a ~36 kilobase double stranded linear DNA. The virus compensates for its small genome by encoding polypeptides from both DNA strands and by alternative splicing and the use of different poly(A) sites. I will talk about organisation of adenovirus genome, gene expression and replication and will give an overview of adenovirus capsid structure, major and minor capsid proteins and their role in infection, as well as changes in cells triggered by adenovirus infection. Adenoviruses were one of the first vector systems to be developed. Vectors based on human adenovirus serotypes 2 and 5 of species C possess a number of features that have favoured their widespread employment for gene delivery both in vitro and in vivo. That is why I will describe mostly the structure and molecular biology of these two viruses. However I will emphasize the specificity of other adenovirus serotypes especially regarding major capsid proteins and infection mechanisms. I will describe the idea of replication deficient viruses and helper dependent, so called gutless viruses, and explain the generation of these viruses by molecular biology methods.

adenovirus ; molecular biology

nije evidentirano