Chris Sullivan

Dicer accumulates in cytoplasmic foci upon alphavirus infection and plays a proviral role in Myotis myotis bat cells Bats are reservoirs for many viruses that frequently cause epidemics in humans and animals. It is thus critical to better understand their immune system and mechanisms of antiviral immunity. Despite a...

🚨Preprint alert! Kind of a late notice, but here is our latest work on bat Dicer and viral infection. Work led by @leagaucherand.bsky.social and Hugo Marie in the lab. @cnrsbiologie.bsky.social @unistra.fr @frm-officiel.bsky.social

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

If anyone is at #RNA2025, please stop by my lab’s posters on triphosphate balance and virus infection and tracking persistent infection with precision to identify viral miRNA functions.

Authors Szymanik and Mojumder are really great and are presenting in the second session this Friday from 8-10.

Shedding dynamics of a DNA virus population during acute and long-term persistent infection Author Summary/ Importance Polyomavirus infections, mostly benign but potentially fatal for immunocompromised individuals, undergo acute and long-term persistent infections. Typically, polyomavirus-as...

Small DNA viruses can concurrently shed via two different patterns: continuous low-level shedding of numerous reservoirs and punctuated rare high shedding from one or a few reservoirs.

We hope tools presented here are useful to study other persistent pathogens.

journals.plos.org/plospathogen...

Hsc70-4: An unanticipated mediator of dsRNA internalization in Drosophila Hsc70-4 localizes to the cell surface of Drosophila cells, binds to exogenous dsRNA, and mediates its internalization.

Stop for a second and try to imagine this: a heat shock protein relocalizes to the cell surface and mediates dsRNA binding and internalization!
Intrigued? Read our newly minted paper in Science Advances www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Congrats to all the authors and thanks to reviewers and editor!

Viral piracy of host RNA phosphatase DUSP11 by avipoxviruses 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...

Newest: Virologs mark #RNA metabolism as an evolutionary battleground during infection - Great collaboration w/@sullivanlab.bsky.social & Kayla Szymanik @plos.org journals.plos.org/plospathogen...

New Resource Article:
Joseph Ziegelbauer @drjz.bsky.social and colleagues profile cis- and trans-acting elements of viral circRNAs and identify noncanonical mechanisms underlying back-splicing - utilizing their custom-built “CHARLIE” pipeline
www.embopress.org/doi/full/10....

Viral piracy of host RNA phosphatase DUSP11 by avipoxviruses 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...

Another nice example of a host-acquired gene in poxviruses, which modulates the host immune response.
dx.plos.org/10.1371/jour...

Viral piracy of host RNA phosphatase DUSP11 by avipoxviruses 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...

Previously, KO and overexpression showed host RNA 5’ triphosphatase DUSP11 can reduce RIG-I sensitivity.

Here, we show poxviruses code for viral DUSP11 that can regulate host RNP III transcripts and RIG-I, providing evolutionary support DUSP11 can be pro-viral.

journals.plos.org/plospathogen...

This work depended on the creative mind of Benni Goetz who came up with new ways to visualize and analyze virus barcode data. Unfortunately, Benni passed away before publication of his work. We hope his methods will be useful to others studying diverse microbes and persistent infection.

This may help explain the ubiquity and success of these viruses for long term persistence.

Shedding dynamics of a DNA virus population during acute and long-term persistent infection Although much is known of the molecular mechanisms of virus infection within cells, substantially less is understood about within-host infection. Such knowledge is key to understanding how viruses tak...

Happy to share our manuscript showing that a small DNA virus can concurrently shed via two different patterns: continuous low-level shedding of numerous reservoirs and punctuated rare high shedding from one or a few reservoirs.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Please add me too. I am a virologist at UT Austin.