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Karla KirkegaardAcademic Appointments
Appointment
Organization
Professor
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Administrative Appointments
Title
Organization
Start Year
End Year
Chair
Stanford University School of Medicine - Microbiology & Immunology
2006
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Postdoctoral Advisees
Eric Freundt,
Roberto Mateo Fernandez,
Jennifer Ptacek
Web Site Links
Research Interests
For many subcellular viruses and parasites, RNA, not DNA, is the carrier of genetic information. This has several interesting consequences for the genetics and biology of the virus. Poliovirus serves as a model to increase our understanding of positive-strand RNA viruses for which no vaccine is available and which remain a significant health hazard: examples include other picornaviruses, such as rhinoviruses, coxsackieviruses and the deadly enterovirus 71 as well as more distantly related positive-strand RNA viruses such as hepatitis C and Dengue fever.
Questions currently under scrutiny are posed below, and discussed in greater detail in our web site.
1. How does the biochemistry of RNA-dependent RNA polymerases affect the biology of RNA viruses?
2. How are the membranous structures on which viral RNA replication complexes assemble form, and
from what intracellular organelles do they derive?
3. Why are the genetic properties of many RNA genomes different from DNA genomes? How does the error-prone nature of RNA-dependent RNA replication and the membrane association of the RNA replication complexes affect these genetic properties?
4. How does the inhibition of the protein secretory apparatus by the 3A and 2B proteins of picornaviruses such as poliovirus affect their pathogenesis? What would happen to the secretion of interferons, and to the presentation of antigens in the context of MHC class I molecules, if the host secretory pathway were not inhibited during infection by polioviruses, rhinoviruses and coxsackieviruses?
Questions currently under scrutiny are posed below, and discussed in greater detail in our web site.
1. How does the biochemistry of RNA-dependent RNA polymerases affect the biology of RNA viruses?
2. How are the membranous structures on which viral RNA replication complexes assemble form, and
from what intracellular organelles do they derive?
3. Why are the genetic properties of many RNA genomes different from DNA genomes? How does the error-prone nature of RNA-dependent RNA replication and the membrane association of the RNA replication complexes affect these genetic properties?
4. How does the inhibition of the protein secretory apparatus by the 3A and 2B proteins of picornaviruses such as poliovirus affect their pathogenesis? What would happen to the secretion of interferons, and to the presentation of antigens in the context of MHC class I molecules, if the host secretory pathway were not inhibited during infection by polioviruses, rhinoviruses and coxsackieviruses?
Publications
- Taylor MP, Kirkegaard K "Modification of cellular autophagy protein LC3 by poliovirus." J Virol 2007; More »
- Taylor MP, Kirkegaard K "Potential subversion of autophagosomal pathway by picornaviruses." Autophagy 2007; 4: 3: More »
- Tellez AB, Crowder S, Spagnolo JF, Thompson AA, Peersen OB, Brutlag DL, Kirkegaard K "Nucleotide Channel of RNA-dependent RNA Polymerase used for Intermolecular Uridylylation of Protein Primer." J Mol Biol 2006; More »
- Pfeiffer JK, Kirkegaard K "Bottleneck-mediated quasispecies restriction during spread of an RNA virus from inoculation site to brain." Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2006; More »
- Richards OC, Spagnolo JF, Lyle JM, Vleck SE, Kuchta RD, Kirkegaard K "Intramolecular and Intermolecular Uridylylation by Poliovirus RNA-Dependent RNA Polymerase." J Virol 2006; 80: 15: 7405-15 More »
28 publications: view full list
