Convergence of RNA cis elements and cellular polyadenylation factors in the regulation of human cytomegalovirus UL37 exon 1 unspliced RNA production.

ABSTRACT: The human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) UL36-38 immediate early (IE) locus encodes proteins required for its growth. The UL37 promoter drives production of an unspliced and several alternatively spliced RNAs. The UL37 exon 1 (UL37x1) unspliced RNA is abundant from IE to late times of HCMV infection, whereas the UL37 spliced RNAs are markedly less abundant. Production of the UL37x1 unspliced RNA requires polyadenylation (PA) at nucleotide 50998, which lies within intron 1, upstream of the UL37 exon 2 (UL37x2) acceptor. The physical proximity of its cis elements suggests steric hindrance between PA and splicing machineries for UL37 pre-mRNA. To test this possibility, we generated site-specific mutants in Target 1 PA and RNA splicing cis elements and compared the PA and splicing efficiencies of muta

SUBMITTER: Su Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC262569 | biostudies-literature | 2003 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature