Processing of nuclear viroids in vivo: an interplay between RNA conformations.

ABSTRACT: Replication of viroids, small non-protein-coding plant pathogenic RNAs, entails reiterative transcription of their incoming single-stranded circular genomes, to which the (+) polarity is arbitrarily assigned, cleavage of the oligomeric strands of one or both polarities to unit-length, and ligation to circular RNAs. While cleavage in chloroplastic viroids (family Avsunviroidae) is mediated by hammerhead ribozymes, where and how cleavage of oligomeric (+) RNAs of nuclear viroids (family Pospiviroidae) occurs in vivo remains controversial. Previous in vitro data indicated that a hairpin capped by a GAAA tetraloop is the RNA motif directing cleavage and a loop E motif ligation. Here we have re-examined this question in vivo, taking advantage of earlier findings showing that dimeric viroid (+)

SUBMITTER: Gas ME 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2098832 | biostudies-literature | 2007 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature