AUTHOR=Piedra Felipe-Andrés , Henke David , Rajan Anubama , Muzny Donna M. , Doddapaneni Harsha , Menon Vipin K. , Hoffman Kristi L. , Ross Matthew C. , Javornik Cregeen Sara J. , Metcalf Ginger , Gibbs Richard A. , Petrosino Joseph F. , Avadhanula Vasanthi , Piedra Pedro A. TITLE=Modeling nonsegmented negative-strand RNA virus (NNSV) transcription with ejective polymerase collisions and biased diffusion JOURNAL=Frontiers in Molecular Biosciences VOLUME=9 YEAR=2023 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/molecular-biosciences/articles/10.3389/fmolb.2022.1095193 DOI=10.3389/fmolb.2022.1095193 ISSN=2296-889X ABSTRACT=

Infections by non-segmented negative-strand RNA viruses (NNSV) are widely thought to entail gradient gene expression from the well-established existence of a single promoter at the 3’ end of the viral genome and the assumption of constant transcriptional attenuation between genes. But multiple recent studies show viral mRNA levels in infections by respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), a major human pathogen and member of NNSV, that are inconsistent with a simple gradient. Here we integrate known and newly predicted phenomena into a biophysically reasonable model of NNSV transcription. Our model succeeds in capturing published observations of respiratory syncytial virus and vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) mRNA levels. We therefore propose a novel understanding of NNSV transcription based on the possibility of ejective polymerase-polymerase collisions and, in the case of RSV, biased polymerase diffusion.