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Updated: Feb 28, 2026

Functional Imaging of Viral Transcription Factories Using 3D Fluorescence Microscopy
Published on: January 18, 2018
Chromatin organization regulates viral egress dynamics
Vesa Aho1, Markko Myllys1, Visa Ruokolainen2
1Department of Physics, and Nanoscience Center, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland.
Abstract:
Various types of DNA viruses are known to elicit the formation of a large nuclear viral replication compartment and marginalization of the cell chromatin. We used three-dimensional soft x-ray tomography, confocal and electron microscopy, combined with numerical modelling of capsid diffusion to analyse the molecular organization of chromatin in herpes simplex virus 1 infection and its effect on the transport of progeny viral capsids to the nuclear envelope. Our data showed that the formation of the viral replication compartment at late infection resulted in the enrichment of heterochromatin in the nuclear periphery accompanied by the compaction of chromatin. Random walk modelling of herpes simplex virus 1-sized particles in a three-dimensional soft x-ray tomography reconstruction of an infected cell nucleus demonstrated that the peripheral, compacted chromatin restricts viral capsid diffusion, but due to interchromatin channels capsids are able to reach the nuclear envelope, the site of their nuclear egress.
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