The viral fusosome: a modular machinery for cargo delivery to target cells

蛋白质、RNA和DNA进入细胞是正常细胞生物学、病毒感染和基因编辑等生物技术应用中的关键过程。被包裹的病毒利用一种复杂的机制，通过调节它们与细胞膜的融合来秘密传递基因组，从而以极高的效率和特异性实现这一操作。值得注意的是，所有具有特征的病毒融合蛋白只属于16年前定义的3个类别，并且共享令人惊讶的保守机制。我们在无处不在的昆虫病毒中发现了一类具有独特结构的新型融合蛋白。该项目将阐明这种聚变机械的结构和功能特点，为其工程提供一个平台。

The delivery of proteins, RNA and DNA into cells is a critical process in normal cellular biology, virus infection and biotechnology applications such as gene editing. Enveloped viruses achieve this maneuver with exquisite efficiency and specificity using a complex machinery mediating their fusion with cellular membranes for stealth genome delivery. Remarkably, all characterised viral fusion proteins belong to only 3 classes defined >16 years ago and sharing surprisingly conserved mechanisms. We identified a novel class of fusion proteins with unique architecture in ubiquitous insect viruses. The Project will elucidate the structural and functional hallmarks of this fusion machinery providing a platform for its engineering.