Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) is a positive-strand RNA virus that has infected more than 3% of the world population. Chronic infections by the virus lead to cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. HCV is currently the leading cause for liver transplantation in the US. The nonstructural protein NS5B of HCV is the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) that replicates the viral RNA on host derived membranous structures.
Structurally NS5B has the characteristic fingers, thumb and palm domains seen in all polymerase proteins. However, extensive interactions between the fingers and thumb domains completely encircle the active site of NS5B as seen in solved X-ray diffraction crystal structures. These interactions are primarily mediated by a short (35 residues) flexible loop called the Delta 1 loop. NS5B produced from heterologous systems can initiate RNA synthesis by a de novo initiation mechanism from 3?ends of RNA templates or can also extend from 3'ends of primers that are annealed stably to a template RNA in biochemical assays. The closed conformation of NS5B as per X-ray crystal structures can only accommodate a ssRNA but not a dsRNA, hence necessitating a conformational change between de novo initiation and elongation. The details of these conformational changes are not known and will prove to be important to design potent polymerase inhibitors. The study performed for this dissertation focused on the conformational requirements of NS5B during de novo initiation and primer extension (or elongation). Biochemical assays utilizing template RNAs that can lead to both de novo initiation and primer extension products were utilized, and a systematic mutational analysis of the template channel of the RdRp was performed. Mutants W397A and H428A were identified that showed only primer extension but no de novo initiation. Structural analysis of NS5B suggested that these residues were important contact points in the Delta 1 loop and thumb domain interactions. A deletion mutant, m26-30 with a five amino acid deletion at the apex of the Delta 1 loop also failed in de novo initiation but not primer extension reactions. Biophysical and gel shift assays showed that m26-30 was in a more open conformation than the WT enzyme. Furthermore, oligomerization of NS5B was demonstrated and its role in RNA synthesis was examined. It was found that the de novo initiation competent conformation of NS5B is maintained by oligomeric contacts between individual subunits, likely by stabilizing the Delta 1 loop and thumb domain interactions. Mutations disrupting the Delta 1 loop and thumb domain interactions as well as those in the allosteric GTP binding site induced conformational changes in the protein partially explaining the defect in de novo initiation activity in enzymes carrying those mutations. These results not only contribute to the overall mechanism of RNA synthesis in viral RdRps but also open new avenues for developing HCV polymerase inhibitors.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/ETD-TAMU-2010-05-7816 |
| Date | 2010 May 1900 |
| Creators | Reddy Chinnaswamy, Sreedhar |
| Contributors | Kao, Cheng C., Young, Ryland F. |
| Source Sets | Texas A and M University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | thesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
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