Zhang et al. show that during poxvirus infection, protein kinase R binds not only viral RNAs but also host intron-retained transcripts that accumulate. Cellular PACT and viral E3 set activation thresholds for PKR, linking RNA processing, viral replication, and innate immunity.

During infection, coronaviruses produce abundant double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) which can induce antiviral innate immune responses such as the interferon, 2'-5'-oligoadenylate synthetase (OAS)/RNase L, a...

Interferons (IFN) are cytokines that regulate the expression of hundreds of genes during viral infections to generate a broadly antiviral environment in the stimulated cell. Antiviral breadth is provi...

Author summary Coronaviruses (CoVs) use the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) for synthesis and processing of viral transmembrane proteins, including those that sculpt ER membranes into replication compartme...

Non-spike changes driving SARS-CoV-2 fitness remain undiscovered. This Primer comments on two PLOS Biology papers that show that evolutionary N gene mutations create a transcription-regulating sequenc...

SARS-CoV-2 has evolved to optimize its replication fitness in the human host. This study shows that a nucleocapsid gene mutation enhances production of a truncated protein that boosts viral fitness in...

SARS-CoV-2 has evolved to optimize its replication fitness in the human host. This study shows that a nucleocapsid gene mutation enhances production of a truncated protein that boosts viral fitness in...

Hepatitis D-like satellite viruses, known as deltaviruses, have been recently discovered in a wide range of animals. These viruses are thought to expr…

Fever promotes aberrant influenza A virus RNA synthesis and innate immune activation.

Viruses generally have compact genomes, resulting in many viral mRNAs with short 5’ untranslated regions. An antiviral complex exploits this feature of viral mRNAs to selectively inhibit viral protein...

Author summary Viruses face a critical challenge of disabling or avoiding host immune defenses. Cells typically recognize the presence of a virus through specific molecular markers, including triphosp...

After 150,000 articles and 17 million genome sequences, what has science taught us about SARS-Cov-2?

Viruses face a selective pressure to evade cellular antiviral responses to control the outcome of an infection. However, due to their limited genome size, viruses must adopt unique strategies to confr...