The cap-snatching endonuclease family is a group of enzymes found in segmented negative strand RNA viruses of the arena-, bunya-, and orthomyxovirus families. The viruses use cap-snatching to transcribe viral mRNA, which involves cleaving the host mR ...
The cap-snatching endonuclease family is a group of enzymes found in segmented negative strand RNA viruses of the arena-, bunya-, and orthomyxovirus families. The viruses use cap-snatching to transcribe viral mRNA, which involves cleaving the host mRNA near its 5' end and is accomplished by an endonuclease (EN) domain located in the N-terminal region of the viral polymerase. The cap-snatching ENs belong to the PD-D/ExK superfamily of cation-dependent nucleases and have an active site configuration that includes two divalent metal ions and a histidine residue. The available structures of the influenza orthomyxovirus and LACV orthobunyavirus show the canonical conformation of the active site, while the arenavirus ENs show differences in their active sites, such as the replacement of the metal-coordinating histidine with an acidic residue in arenavirus ENs. The Hantaan virus cap-snatching EN has been structurally characterized, revealing high endonuclease activity, while the Lassa virus endonuclease has low intrinsic activity due to its non-canonical coordination of the catalytic metal ions.