Genomic organization of the herpesviral genome within the host cell nucleus
Conference Year
January 2019
Abstract
Human herpesvirus-6 (HHV-6) is a ubiquitous human pathogen that is associated with seizures and encephalitis as well as various other diseases. HHV-6 has been recently shown to integrate its genome into the telomeres of latently infected cells. Upon integration, the virus genome is transcriptionally silenced. While epigenetic modifications including post-translational modification of histone proteins are known to play a critical role in herpesvirus latency, little is known regarding the role of chromatin structures in viral gene regulation and latency. I will test the hypothesis that the HHV-6 integrated genome forms specific genomic structures within the host cell nucleus to explore how chromatin interactions contribute to HHV-6 gene regulation and latency. While epigenetic mechanisms are critical to herpesvirus life cycles, little is known regarding their higher order chromatin structures and how these contribute to viral latency. Accordingly, I have employed circular chromosome conformation capture coupled with high-throughput sequencing (4C-seq analysis) to map the genome-wide maps of integrated HHV-6 genomes. Overall, this approach will facilitate the analysis of higher order chromatin structures formed by integrated HHV-6 genomes within latently infected cells.
Primary Faculty Mentor Name
Seth Frietze
Graduate Student Mentors
Diana Gerrard, Michael Mariani
Faculty/Staff Collaborators
Diana Gerrard (Graduate Student Mentor), Michael Mariani (Graduate student collaborating mentor)
Status
Undergraduate
Student College
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
Program/Major
Microbiology and Molecular Genetics
Primary Research Category
Biological Sciences
Genomic organization of the herpesviral genome within the host cell nucleus
Human herpesvirus-6 (HHV-6) is a ubiquitous human pathogen that is associated with seizures and encephalitis as well as various other diseases. HHV-6 has been recently shown to integrate its genome into the telomeres of latently infected cells. Upon integration, the virus genome is transcriptionally silenced. While epigenetic modifications including post-translational modification of histone proteins are known to play a critical role in herpesvirus latency, little is known regarding the role of chromatin structures in viral gene regulation and latency. I will test the hypothesis that the HHV-6 integrated genome forms specific genomic structures within the host cell nucleus to explore how chromatin interactions contribute to HHV-6 gene regulation and latency. While epigenetic mechanisms are critical to herpesvirus life cycles, little is known regarding their higher order chromatin structures and how these contribute to viral latency. Accordingly, I have employed circular chromosome conformation capture coupled with high-throughput sequencing (4C-seq analysis) to map the genome-wide maps of integrated HHV-6 genomes. Overall, this approach will facilitate the analysis of higher order chromatin structures formed by integrated HHV-6 genomes within latently infected cells.