Genomic-Scale Interaction Involving Complementary Sequences in the Hepatitis C Virus 5'UTR Domain IIa and the RNA-Dependent RNA Polymerase Coding Region Promotes Efficient Virus Replication.

ABSTRACT: The hepatitis C virus (HCV) genome contains structured elements thought to play important regulatory roles in viral RNA translation and replication processes. We used in vitro RNA binding assays to map interactions involving the HCV 5'UTR and distal sequences in NS5B to examine their impact on viral RNA replication. The data revealed that 5'UTR nucleotides (nt) 95⁻110 in the internal ribosome entry site (IRES) domain IIa and matching nt sequence 8528⁻8543 located in the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase coding region NS5B, form a high-affinity RNA-RNA complex in vitro. This duplex is composed of both wobble and Watson-Crick base-pairings, with the latter shown to be essential to the formation of the high-affinity duplex. HCV genomic RNA constructs containing mutations in domain IIa nt 95⁻110 or

SUBMITTER: Rance E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6357077 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature