Among the most common infections and a significant burden on society are RNA viruses. Although RNA viruses have been extensively investigated, due to a lack of sensitive assays, little is known about the processes that take place within the initial few hours after infection. Here, we create the virus infection real-time imaging (VIRIM) single-molecule imaging technique to examine the translation and replication of individual RNA viruses in living cells. Virim revealed substantial coordination between the translation and replication of individual viral RNAs as well as a startling variability in replication kinetics between cells. Additionally, we use VIRIM to pinpoint the host genes that prevent early viral replication and identify the replication stage of the incoming viral RNA as a significant bottleneck of effective infection. Single-molecule photography the study of virus replication and virus-host interactions is a potent technique that can be broadly applied to RNA viruses.
Keywords+RNA virus; Viral translation; Viral replication; Virus-host competition; Single-molecule imaging; Suntag; Virim
Published Date: 2023-02-28; Received Date: 2023-02-02
