Phosphorylation tunes strain-specific protein condensation during rotavirus replication organelle assembly
Julia Acker, Xinyu Wang, Alonso J Pardal, Daniel Desirò, Tanushree Agarwal, Alice Colyer, Aidan Tollervey, Rob Scrutton, Cyril Haller, Lee Sherry, Kadi L Saar, Ksenia Fominykh, Margaret L L Y Johncock, Sai Hou Chong, Rosie Murray, Jamie Terry, Jeremy D Schmit, Antonio N Calabrese, Tuomas P J Knowles · 2026
Read Phosphorylation tunes strain-specific protein condensation during rotavirus replication organelle assembly by Julia Acker, Xinyu Wang, Alonso J Pardal, Daniel Desirò, Tanushree Agarwal, Alice Colyer, Aidan Tollervey, Rob Scrutton, Cyril Haller, Lee Sherry, Kadi L Saar, Ksenia Fominykh, Margaret L L Y Johncock, Sai Hou Chong, Rosie Murray, Jamie Terry, Jeremy D Schmit, Antonio N Calabrese, Tuomas P J Knowles (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/pmc-13324165.txt.
Description
Julia Acker and team asked whether the way rotavirus builds its replication organelles is truly conserved across strains. Their 2026 study focused on NSP5, a disordered protein that forms condensates with NSP2 through liquid-liquid phase separation in species A rotaviruses. Because NSP5 sequences vary widely, the team used machine learning to compare variants and built one carrying features of low-split strains.
The built low-split variant could not phase separate on its own unless tagged with phosphate, yet it still supported droplet formation and virus growth inside cells. Low-split variants needed phosphate tags to nucleate droplets, while high-split variants did not, pointing to distinct nucleation mechanisms. Hydrogen-deuterium exchange mass spectrometry revealed a phosphate-driven switch that alters NSP2 binding depending on the variant. The authors conclude that phosphate tagging tunes droplet assembly in a strain-specific way.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Julia Acker, Xinyu Wang, Alonso J Pardal, Daniel Desirò, Tanushree Agarwal, Alice Colyer, Aidan Tollervey, Rob Scrutton, Cyril Haller, Lee Sherry, Kadi L Saar, Ksenia Fominykh, Margaret L L Y Johncock, Sai Hou Chong, Rosie Murray, Jamie Terry, Jeremy D Schmit, Antonio N Calabrese, Tuomas P J Knowles |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 113 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |