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Alternative structures of the cauliflower mosaic virus 35 S RNA leader: implications for viral expression and replication.
Journal article

Alternative structures of the cauliflower mosaic virus 35 S RNA leader: implications for viral expression and replication.

  • 1997-04-18
Published in:
  • Journal of molecular biology. - 1997
Base Sequence
Caulimovirus
Computer Simulation
Dimerization
Gene Expression Regulation, Viral
Genome, Viral
Models, Molecular
Molecular Probes
Molecular Sequence Data
Mutagenesis
Nucleic Acid Conformation
Protein Biosynthesis
RNA, Messenger
RNA, Viral
Thermodynamics
Virus Replication
English The CaMV 35 S RNA functions as both messenger and pregenomic RNA under the control of its 600 nts leader, which contains regulatory elements involved in splicing, polyadenylation, translation, reverse transcription, and probably also packaging. The structure of the leader has been characterized theoretically and experimentally. The predicted conformation, a low-energy elongated hairpin, base-pairing the two halves of the leader, with a cross-like structure at the top, is strongly supported by enzymatic probing, chemical modification, and phylogenetic comparison. The elongated hairpin is stabilized by strong base-pairing between the ends of the leader, regions which are important in allowing translation downstream of the leader via the ribosome shunt mechanism. At high ionic strength the 35 S RNA leader exhibits additional higher order structures of low electrophoretic mobility: (1) a long-range pseudoknot connecting central and terminal parts of the leader; (2) a dimer. Alternative structures of the CaMV 35 S RNA leader may co-exist and have specialized functions. Their potential impact on CaMV life cycle regulation is discussed.
Language
  • English
Open access status
closed
Identifiers
Persistent URL
https://folia.unifr.ch/global/documents/204708
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