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How to get out: ssRNA enveloped viruses and membrane fission

Winfried Weissenhorn1, Emilie Poudevigne, Gregory Effantin

  • 1Unit of Virus Host Cell Interactions (UVHCI), UMI 3265, Université Joseph Fourier-EMBL-CNRS, 6 rue Jules Horowitz, 38042 Grenoble Cedex 9, France. weissenhorn@embl.fr

Current Opinion in Virology
|April 16, 2013
PubMed

Insights

Enveloped viruses use membrane fission to bud from host cells. This review explores how the ESCRT machinery and alternative mechanisms mediate this crucial viral budding process.

Area of Science:

  • Virology
  • Cell Biology
  • Biochemistry

Background:

  • Enveloped viruses originate from host cell membranes.
  • Viral budding requires membrane fission to release new virions.
  • The Endosomal Sorting Complex Required for Transport (ESCRT) is known to mediate some viral budding events.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To outline general principles of membrane fission.
  • To review ESCRT-mediated membrane fission in viral budding.
  • To discuss ESCRT-independent viral budding mechanisms.

Main Methods:

  • Literature review of viral membrane fission.
  • Analysis of ESCRT machinery function in viral budding.
  • Comparison of ESCRT-dependent and independent budding pathways.

Main Results:

  • Membrane fission is a fundamental process for enveloped virus release.
  • ESCRT machinery plays a key role in the budding of certain viruses.
  • Alternative, non-ESCRT pathways are utilized by other viruses for budding.

Conclusions:

  • Understanding membrane fission mechanisms is vital for virology.
  • ESCRT-dependent and independent pathways offer diverse strategies for viral replication.
  • Further research into alternative fission mechanisms could reveal new antiviral targets.

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