Transmissible gastroenteritis coronavirus genome packaging signal is located at the 5' end of the genome and promotes viral RNA incorporation into virions in a replication-independent process.

ABSTRACT: Preferential RNA packaging in coronaviruses involves the recognition of viral genomic RNA, a crucial process for viral particle morphogenesis mediated by RNA-specific sequences, known as packaging signals. An essential packaging signal component of transmissible gastroenteritis coronavirus (TGEV) has been further delimited to the first 598 nucleotides (nt) from the 5' end of its RNA genome, by using recombinant viruses transcribing subgenomic mRNA that included potential packaging signals. The integrity of the entire sequence domain was necessary because deletion of any of the five structural motifs defined within this region abrogated specific packaging of this viral RNA. One of these RNA motifs was the stem-loop SL5, a highly conserved motif in coronaviruses located at nucleotide positio

SUBMITTER: Morales L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3807314 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature