{"doi":"10.1371/journal.ppat.1008843","title":"The gammaherpesviral TATA-box-binding protein directly interacts with the CTD of host RNA Pol II to direct late gene transcription","abstract":"β- and γ-herpesviruses include the oncogenic human viruses Kaposi's sarcoma-associated virus (KSHV) and Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), and human cytomegalovirus (HCMV), which is a significant cause of congenital disease. Near the end of their replication cycle, these viruses transcribe their late genes in a manner distinct from host transcription. Late gene transcription requires six virally encoded proteins, one of which is a functional mimic of host TATA-box-binding protein (TBP) that is also involved in recruitment of RNA polymerase II (Pol II) via unknown mechanisms. Here, we applied biochemical protein interaction studies together with electron microscopy-based imaging of a reconstituted human preinitiation complex to define the mechanism underlying Pol II recruitment. These data revealed that the herpesviral TBP, encoded by ORF24 in KSHV, makes a direct protein-protein contact with the C-terminal domain of host RNA polymerase II (Pol II), which is a unique feature that functionally distinguishes viral from cellular TBP. The interaction is mediated by the N-terminal domain (NTD) of ORF24 through a conserved motif that is shared in its β- and γ-herpesvirus homologs. Thus, these herpesviruses employ an unprecedented strategy in eukaryotic transcription, wherein promoter recognition and polymerase recruitment are facilitated by a single transcriptional activator with functionally distinct domains.","journal":"PLoS Pathogens","year":2020,"id":71142,"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":18,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9555,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2020-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":179973,"name":"Allison L. Didychuk","orcid":"0000-0001-7277-5233","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":376281,"name":"Robert K. Louder","orcid":"0000-0002-6944-9346","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":376282,"name":"Chloe O. McCollum","orcid":"0000-0002-3071-4886","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":376283,"name":"Zoe H. Davis","orcid":"0000-0003-2894-8656","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":308992,"name":"Eva Nogales","orcid":"0000-0001-9816-3681","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":225684,"name":"Britt A. Glaunsinger","orcid":"0000-0003-0479-9377","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":376280,"name":"Angelica F. Castañeda","orcid":"0000-0003-0439-5962","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":57,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T21:43:57.004133Z","pmid":"32886723","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":[]}