Jan. 21, 2021 , 2:10 PM
For 7 years as president of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Robert Tjian helped steer hundreds of millions of dollars to scientists probing provocative ideas that might transform biology and biomedicine. So the biochemist was intrigued a couple of years ago when his graduate student David McSwiggen uncovered data likely to fuel excitement about a process called phase separation, already one of the hottest concepts in cell biology.
Phase separation advocates hold that proteins and other molecules self-organize into denser structures inside cells, like oil drops forming in water. That spontaneous sorting, proponents assert, serves as a previously unrecognized mechanism for arranging the cell’s contents and mustering the molecules necessary to trigger key cellular events. McSwiggen had found hints that phase separation helps herpesviruses replicate inside infected cells, adding to claims that the process plays a role in functions as diverse as switching
Modeling study sheds light on SARS-CoV-2 genome packaging
Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have conducted a study exploring how the spatial patterning of certain genomic RNA regions in severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) promotes compaction, packaging, and cyclization of the viral genome.
The novel SARS-CoV-2 virus is the agent responsible for the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic that continues to sweep the globe posing an unprecedented threat to global health and the worldwide economy.
A significant challenge for viruses such as SARS-CoV-2 is the specific and efficient packaging of a large genome into a relatively small capsid while excluding viral subgenomic fragments and cellular nucleic acids.