[초청강연] Welcome to the virosphere: A functional viromics screen uncovers novel RNA regulatory mechanisms

Welcome to the virosphere: A functional viromics screen uncovers novel RNA regulatory
mechanisms

Narry Kim
School of Biological Sciences at Seoul National University and RNA Research Center at IBS

Viruses are the most abundant biological entities on Earth and harbor diverse regulatory
modules. Yet, understanding of their regulatory functions lag behind the rapidly expanding
universe of sequenced viral genomes. Here, we take a massively parallel approach to
screen the activities of 30,367 viral segments from 143 viral species representing 96 genera
and 36 families. We identify numerous RNA elements which enhance or suppress RNA
abundance and/or translation. One prominent positive element, K5, interacts with a
previously uncharacterized protein, ZCCHC2. ZCCHC2 recruits the terminal
nucleotidyltransferase TENT4 to extend poly(A) tails with mixed sequences, delaying
deadenylation. K5 enhances mRNA stability and translation not only in plasmids but also in
adeno-associated viral vectors and in vitro transcribed mRNAs which are promising gene
therapy tools and vaccine platforms. This study provides a resource for virus and RNA
research and illustrates the potential of the virosphere for identifying novel regulatory
mechanisms.