The transcriptional gradient in negative-strand RNA viruses suggests a common RNA transcription mechanism
Connor R. King, Casey-Tyler Berezin, Brian Munsky, Jean Peccoud, James R Faeder, Oleg A Igoshin, James R Faeder, Eric C. Dykeman, James R Faeder, Eric C. Dykeman, James R Faeder, Eric C. Dykeman · 2026
Read The transcriptional gradient in negative-strand RNA viruses suggests a common RNA transcription mechanism by Connor R. King, Casey-Tyler Berezin, Brian Munsky, Jean Peccoud, James R Faeder, Oleg A Igoshin, James R Faeder, Eric C. Dykeman, James R Faeder, Eric C. Dykeman, James R Faeder, Eric C. Dykeman (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/PMC13313335.txt.
Description
Connor R. King and colleagues propose a new account of a gene-reading pattern in a class of RNA viruses in a paper from 2026. These nonsegmented negative-strand RNA viruses read their genes in a fading gradient, with early genes read most and later genes read less.
The old stop-start account blames the copying enzyme pausing at gene joints. The team instead built the RNA Polymerase Association Mechanism model, a random-process frame with two settings for how far the enzyme holds on and how much it can backtrack. The model matched the fading pattern across many such viruses and in shuffled variants of the VSV virus. Its process measure also tracked with genome length, as the authors report. A shared mechanism across this virus class could sharpen antiviral design.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Connor R. King, Casey-Tyler Berezin, Brian Munsky, Jean Peccoud, James R Faeder, Oleg A Igoshin, James R Faeder, Eric C. Dykeman, James R Faeder, Eric C. Dykeman, James R Faeder, Eric C. Dykeman |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 70209 |
| LICENSE | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |