{"doi":"10.1016/j.celrep.2025.116739","title":"A ribosome-bound pseudoknot in the HCV coding region stimulates viral growth by tuning viral translation","abstract":"Recent studies have uncovered a number of functional RNA structures in RNA viruses, yet their regulatory roles remain poorly understood. Here, using an unbiased proteomic approach alongside targeted biochemical assays, we investigate a previously uncharacterized functional pseudoknot (pk1) within the hepatitis C virus coding region and show that it stably interacts with host ribosomes, inhibiting translation and potentially acting as a regulator between viral translation and RNA genome replication. Comparative structural analysis identifies pk1-like elements in related RNA viruses, suggesting a conserved regulatory mechanism. This study expands the known functions of pseudoknots in viral coding regions beyond frameshifting, highlights the critical role of RNA structure-mediated regulation within viral open reading frames, and provides insight into the design of viral therapeutics and vaccines.","journal":"Cell Reports","year":2025,"id":586534,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":0,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9492,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2025-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1501507,"name":"Harim Jang","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1501134,"name":"Ling Xu","orcid":"0000-0002-4038-3216","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":820500,"name":"Kyrillos Abdallah","orcid":"0000-0002-3355-5788","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":138500,"name":"Wendy V. Gilbert","orcid":null,"position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":296351,"name":"Anna Marie Pyle","orcid":"0000-0001-9045-8872","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":296347,"name":"Han Wan","orcid":"0009-0009-9678-4500","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":59,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:59:32.191237Z","pmid":"41422509","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}