Origins of bidirectional replication of Epstein–Barr virus: Models for understanding mammalian origins of DNA synthesis

✍ Scribed by Jindong Wang; Bill Sugden

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2005
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 169 KB
• Volume: 94
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0730-2312
• DOI: 10.1002/jcb.20324

✦ Synopsis

Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), provides unique advantages to understand origins of replication in higher eukaryotes. EBV establishes itself efficiently in infected B lymphocytes, where it exists as a 165 kb, circular chromosome which is duplicated once per cell cycle (Adams [1987] J Virol 61:1743-1746). Five to twenty copies of the EBV chromosome are usually present in each cell, increasing the signal/noise ratio for mapping and analyzing its replication origins. Remarkably only one viral protein is required for the synthesis and partitioning of the viral chromosomes: EBV nuclear antigen-1, or EBNA1. EBV uses distinct origins related to the ARS1 origin of Saccharomyces cerevisiae and to that of the dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR) locus in Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells [Bogan et al., 2000]. We shall review the properties and the regulation of these two kinds of origins in EBV and relate them to their cellular cousins.