Polyomaviruses

This chapter discusses polyomaviruses, which have been the object of intense study investigating how cells become transformed into tumour cells and also other basic parameters of cellular RNA and DNA synthesis. Like papillomaviruses, the viruses of this family are widespread in the community, but unlike papillomaviruses, their disease impact is very small. The chapter highlights the polyomavirus genomes, which have compact regulatory regions and a number of overlapping genes to compensate for the small size of the genome, which is only 5.3kb coding for 6–8 proteins. The three regions of the genome are the non-coding region (NCCR), which contains the origin of replication (ori), and the early and late coding regions. The chapter details how polyomaviruses bind to sialic acid-containing glycoproteins and gangliosides, and enter cells by endocytosis of specialized vesicles called caveolae.