The strange lifestyle of multipartite viruses

Yannis Michalakis
UMR MIVEGEC (Maladies Infectieuses et Vecteurs : Ecologie, Génétique, Evolution et Contrôle), Montpellier, yannis.michalakis@ird.fr 

Présentation en français (or English if non-francophones attend)

Multipartite viruses have one of the most puzzling genetic organizations found in living organisms: several genome segments, each containing only a part of the genetic information, and each individually encapsidated into a distinct virus particle. While countless studies on molecular and cellular mechanisms of the infection cycle of multipartite viruses are available, just as for other virus types, very seldom is their life style questioned at the “viral system” level. Moreover, the rare available “system” studies are purely theoretical and their predictions on the putative benefit/cost balance of this peculiar genetic organization has have not received experimental support. I will present experimental results pertaining to the relative frequency of the different segments of the Faba Bean Necrotic Stunt Virus (FBNSV) within its plant hosts and its aphid vectors that shed some light and raise many questions on how these viruses may function, what is a genome, and what is the agent of an infection.

NB: this seminar is only incremental to that presented in MIVEGEC in 2015, and perhaps to the SEEM presented by Serafin Gutierrez.

Recent publications:

Sicard, A., Y. Michalakis, S. Gutierrez & S.Blanc. 2016. The strange lifestyle of multipartite viruses. PLoS Pathogens, in press.

Sicard, A., M. Yvon, T. Timchenko, B. Gronenborn, Y. Michalakis, S. Gutiérrez, and S. Blanc. 2013. Gene copy number is differentially regulated in a multipartite virus. Nature Communications, 4:DOI: 10.1038/ncomms3248.