Structural insights into the recruitment of viral Type 2 IRES to ribosomal preinitiation complex for protein synthesis
Year: 2025
Type: preprint
Abstract: Picornaviruses employ internal ribosome entry sites (IRESs) in their genomic RNA to hijack the host’s translational machinery. The picornavirus, Encephalomyocarditis virus, employs a type 2 IRES present in its 5’UTR and requires 43S ribosomal preinitiation complex (PIC), the central domain of eukaryotic initiation factor (eIF) 4G, eIF4A, and an essential ITAF (IRES trans-acting factor)-polypyrimidine tract binding protein 1 (PTB1) to form 48S PIC. In this study, we have used cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) to determine the structure of EMCV IRES-bound mammalian 48S PIC in a scanning-arrested closed state at the start codon. The EMCV IRES domains contacts initiator tRNA (tRNAi) and 40S head at the inter-subunit interface, which reveals an altogether unique mechanism used by viruses to capture host translational machinery for its protein synthesis. The tRNAi is held away from the 40S body in contrast to canonical cap-dependent translation while the domain I apical region of EMCV IRES mimics 28S rRNA of 60S to interact with 40S ribosomal head proteins-uS13 and uS19. The structural analysis account for numerous biochemical studies on Type 2 IRES and shows how Type 2 IRES interacts with 43S PIC to form 48S PIC. This study provides mechanistic insights for understanding EMCV IRES-mediated translation initiation, which could be extrapolated to other IRESs sharing similar motifs and factor requirements including type 1 viral IRESs.
Source: eLife
Authors: Deepakash Das, Tanweer Hussain
Institution: Indian Institute of Science Bangalore
Language: English
Subfield: Molecular Biology
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $2,500
OpenAlex ID: W4413414574