Structural and Functional Characterization of Programmed Ribosomal Frameshift Signals in West Nile Virus Strains Reveals High Structural Plasticity Among cis-Acting RNA Elements.

ABSTRACT: West Nile virus (WNV) is a prototypical emerging virus for which no effective therapeutics currently exist. WNV uses programmed -1 ribosomal frameshifting (-1 PRF) to synthesize the NS1' protein, a C terminally extended version of its non-structural protein 1, the expression of which enhances neuro-invasiveness and viral RNA abundance. Here, the NS1' frameshift signals derived from four WNV strains were investigated to better understand -1 PRF in this quasispecies. Sequences previously predicted to promote -1 PRF strongly promote this activity, but frameshifting was significantly more efficient upon inclusion of additional 3' sequence information. The observation of different rates of -1 PRF, and by inference differences in the expression of NS1', may account for the greater degrees of pat

SUBMITTER: Moomau C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4957060 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature