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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2020 Sep 11.
Published in final edited form as: Cold Spring Harb Perspect Med. 2020 Sep 1;10(9):a038398. doi: 10.1101/cshperspect.a038398

Figure 1. Influenza virus RNAs and vRNP structure.

Figure 1.

A) Influenza virus vRNAs. The influenza A virus genome consists of eight segments of single-stranded negative sense vRNA. Each segment contains conserved 5’ and 3’ termini, segment-specific untranslated regions (UTR) and at least one large open reading frame (ORF). B) Schematic of influenza virus vRNP and transcription and replication. vRNA segments are assembled into vRNPs with multiple copies of NP and a single copy of the viral RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp), composed of PB1, PB2 and PA subunits, that binds the conserved 5’ and 3’ vRNA termini. The RNA polymerase, in the context of vRNPs, transcribes vRNA into viral mRNA, which contains a 5’ cap-1 structure (cap) and a 3’ polyA tail (An), and replicates vRNA through a complementary RNA (cRNA) replicative intermediate, which is assembled with NP and polymerase into cRNP. C) Structure of the influenza virus vRNP. NP protomers are shown in surface and cartoon representation (PDB 4BBL).