Downloaded from http://cshperspectives.cshlp.org/ on September 25, 2021 - Published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press Poxvirus DNA Replication Bernard Moss Laboratory of Viral Diseases, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland 20892 Correspondence:
[email protected] Poxviruses are large, enveloped viruses that replicate in the cytoplasm and encode proteins for DNA replication and gene expression. Hairpin ends link the two strands of the linear, double-stranded DNA genome. Viral proteins involved in DNA synthesis include a 117-kDa polymerase, a helicase–primase, a uracil DNA glycosylase, a processivity factor, a single- stranded DNA-binding protein, a protein kinase, and a DNA ligase. A viral FEN1 family protein participates in double-strand break repair. The DNA is replicated as long conca- temers that are resolved by a viral Holliday junction endonuclease. oxviruses are large, enveloped, DNA viruses (Moss 2007). The DNA replication proteins, in Pthat infect vertebrate and invertebrate spe- contrast to those involved in early transcription, cies and replicate entirely in the cytoplasm are not packaged in virions but are translated (Moss 2007). Two poxviruses are human-spe- from viral early mRNAs. DNA replication oc- cific: variola virus and molluscum contagiosum curs following release of the genome from the virus. The former causes smallpox, a severe dis- core, and progeny DNA serves as the template ease with high mortality that was eradicated for transcription of intermediate- and late-stage more than two decades ago; the latter is distrib- genes (Yang et al. 2011). uted worldwide and produces discrete benign skin lesions in infants and extensive disease in immunocompromised individuals.