Hass Meike, Westerkofsky Martina, Müller Stefanie, Becker-Ziaja Beate, Busch Carola, Günther Stephan
Bernhard-Nocht-Institute of Tropical Medicine, Bernhard-Nocht-Strasse 74, D-20359 Hamburg, Germany.
J Virol. 2006 Dec;80(24):12414-9. doi: 10.1128/JVI.01374-06. Epub 2006 Sep 27.
The promoter sequences directing viral gene expression and genome replication of arenaviruses reside within the 3' and 5' termini of each RNA segment. The terminal 19 nucleotides at both ends are highly conserved among all arenavirus species and are almost completely complementary to each other. This study aimed at characterizing the Lassa virus promoter in detail. The relevance of each position in the promoter was studied by site-directed mutagenesis using the Lassa virus minireplicon system. The data indicate that the Lassa virus promoter functions as a duplex, regulates transcription and replication in a coordinated manner, and is composed of two functional elements, a sequence-specific region from residue 1 to 12 and a variable complementary region from residue 13 to 19. The first region appears to interact with the replication complex mainly via base-specific interactions, while in the second region solely base pairing between 3' and 5' promoter ends is important for promoter function.
指导沙粒病毒病毒基因表达和基因组复制的启动子序列位于每个RNA片段的3'和5'末端。两端的末端19个核苷酸在所有沙粒病毒物种中高度保守，并且几乎完全互补。本研究旨在详细表征拉沙病毒启动子。使用拉沙病毒微型复制子系统通过定点诱变研究了启动子中每个位置的相关性。数据表明，拉沙病毒启动子作为双链体发挥作用，以协调的方式调节转录和复制，并且由两个功能元件组成，一个是从第1位到第12位的序列特异性区域，另一个是从第13位到第19位的可变互补区域。第一个区域似乎主要通过碱基特异性相互作用与复制复合体相互作用，而在第二个区域中，仅3'和5'启动子末端之间的碱基配对对启动子功能很重要。
