Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: EC:2.7.7.48 (transcriptase)
9,479 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Hepatitis A virus (HAV) cDNAs encoding the P3 region proteins were expressed in vivo and in vitro to characterize the HAV 3D protein and to identify the cleavage site between 3C and 3D. Protein coding sequences were placed under control of a T7 promoter and an EMCV translational initiation signal. T7 RNA polymerase was provided by simultaneous infection of transfected BS-C-1 cells with a recombinant vaccinia virus vTF7-3 (T. R. Fuerst et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 83, 8122-8126, 1986). Efficient synthesis and processing of P3 proteins occurred to yield 3CD (78 kDa), 3D (54 kDa), 3ABC (33 kDa), 3BC (25 kDa), and 3C (23 kDa). Similar products were produced by translation of T7 transcripts in a rabbit reticulocyte lysate in vitro. The 3C/D cleavage site was mapped by comparing the mobility of 3D in SDS-PAGE with 3D proteins engineered to begin at each of the two proposed cleavage sites; in addition, direct N-terminal sequencing of radiolabeled 3D protein from translation in vitro was performed. The results showed that 3D was formed by cleavage at the glutamine-arginine (Q/R) pair at position 1738 and 1739 of the HAV polyprotein. HAV 3D protein produced by autocatalytic cleavage of P3 precursor proteins in BS-C-1 cells is virtually completely insoluble and sediments after low-speed centrifugation. This is in contrast to the poliovirus 3D protein, produced from a similar construct, a significant portion of which remains soluble. Extracts containing the poliovirus 3D protein manifested high levels of RNA-dependent RNA polymerase activity, whereas those containing the HAV 3D protein showed no detectable activity by the same assay.
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PMID:Expression of hepatitis A virus precursor protein P3 in vivo and in vitro: polyprotein processing of the 3CD cleavage site. 829 Dec 34

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is a positive strand RNA virus with certain similarity to flaviviruses and pestiviruses. To examine the processing and possible assembly of HCV proteins, we constructed a recombinant vaccinia virus that expresses a full-length genomic RNA, infected chimp liver cells with the virus, and analyzed HCV-related protein products by immunofluorescent antibody staining and Western blot detection with mouse monoclonal antibodies. The putative core, envelope, and NS1 and NS3 proteins that yielded from this recombinant were 22, 32, 53 to 58, and 65 kDa in size, respectively. The NS4 protein was unexpectedly small, with an estimated molecular weight of 7 kDa, and the NS5 protein was found to be further cleaved into 52-kDa NS5a and 58-kDa NS5b proteins, the latter of which contains a hallmark of RNA replicase. A point mutation in the putative protease domain of NS3 resulted in a failure in the production of NS3, NS4, NS5a, and NS5b, but coexpression of NS3 restored the proper processing of these proteins, demonstrating that NS3, the putative viral protease, is essential for the production of these nonstructural proteins. Thus, HCV strikingly resembles pestiviruses in the size and the processing mode of the nonstructural proteins, particularly NS4 and NS5.
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PMID:Production of nonstructural proteins of hepatitis C virus requires a putative viral protease encoded by NS3. 829 Dec 45

Analysis of the 5' termini of Bunyamwera virus S segment mRNAs by cloning and sequence analysis revealed the presence of nonviral, heterogeneous sequences 12 to 17 bases long. This is similar to reports for other members of the family Bunyaviridae and is taken to indicate that mRNA transcription is primed by a "cap-snatching" mechanism. The 3' end of the Bunyamwera virus S mRNA was mapped, by using an RNase protection assay, to 100 to 110 nucleotides upstream of the 3' end of the template. Previously we reported expression of the Bunyamwera virus L (polymerase) protein by recombinant vaccinia virus and demonstrated that the recombinant L protein was functional in terms of RNA synthesis activity in a nucleocapsid transfection assay (H. Jin and R. M. Elliott, J. Virol. 65: 4182-4189, 1991). In the present study we further analyze the RNAs made by using this system and show that positive-sense RNAs contain 5' nonviral sequences. Hence the initiation of mRNA transcription by the recombinant L protein resembles that seen during authentic bunyavirus infection and suggests that the L protein has the endonuclease activity which generates the primers. Some of these positive-sense transcripts terminated at the mRNA termination site, but the majority read through to the end of the template. No primer sequences were found at the 5' terminal of negative-sense RNAs. The recombinant L protein was able to replicate negative-sense RNA supplied by transfected virion-derived nucleocapsids, and both positive- and negative-sense RNAs were synthesized. These results indicate that the recombinant L protein has both transcriptase and replicase activities.
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PMID:Characterization of Bunyamwera virus S RNA that is transcribed and replicated by the L protein expressed from recombinant vaccinia virus. 843 22

Using vaccinia virus to express Sindbis virus (SIN) nonstructural proteins (nsPs) and template RNAs, we showed previously that synthesis of all three viral RNAs occurred only during expression of either the entire nonstructural coding region or the polyprotein precursors P123 and P34. In this report, the vaccinia virus system was used to express cleavage-defective polyproteins and nsP4 proteins containing various N-terminal extensions to directly examine the roles of the P123 and P34 polyproteins in RNA replication. Replication and subgenomic mRNA transcription occurred during coexpression of P34 and P123 polyproteins in which cleavage was blocked at either or both of the 1/2 and 2/3 sites. For all cleavage-defective P123 polyproteins, however, the ratio of subgenomic to genomic RNA was decreased, suggesting that both the 1/2 and 2/3 cleavages are required for efficient subgenomic RNA transcription. These studies indicate that the uncleaved P123 polyprotein can function as a component of the viral replicase capable of synthesizing both plus- and minus-strand RNAs. In contrast, cleavage-defective P34 was unable to function in RNA replication, even in complementation experiments in which minus-strand RNAs were provided by nsP4. A P34 polyprotein whose cleavage site was not altered could only function in RNA replication in the presence of an active nsP2 protease. Although nsP4, the putative RNA polymerase, was capable of synthesizing only minus-strand RNAs during coexpression with P123, the addition of only 22 upstream residues to nsP4 allowed both replication and transcription of subgenomic RNA to occur. These data show that the conserved domains of both nsP3 and the nsP4 polymerase do not need to be present in a P34 polyprotein to form a functional plus-strand replicase-transcriptase and suggest that the presence of an active nsP2 protease and a cleavable 3/4 site correlates with synthesis of all virus-specific RNA species.
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PMID:Roles of nonstructural polyproteins and cleavage products in regulating Sindbis virus RNA replication and transcription. 844 17

A collection of influenza virus PB2 mutant genes was prepared, including N-terminal deletions, C-terminal deletions, and single-amino-acid insertions. These mutant genes, driven by a T7 promoter, were expressed by transfection into COS-1 cells infected with a vaccinia virus encoding T7 RNA polymerase. Mutant proteins accumulated to levels similar to that of wild-type PB2. Immunofluorescence analyses showed that the C-terminal region of the protein is essential for nuclear transport and that internal sequences affect nuclear localization, confirming previous results (J. Mukaijawa and D. P. Nayak, J. Virol. 65:245-253, 1991). The biological activity of these mutants was tested by determining their capacity to (i) reconstitute RNA polymerase activity in vivo by cotransfection with proteins NP, PB1, and PA and a virion-like RNA encoding the cat gene into vaccinia virus T7-infected COS-1 cells and (ii) complete with the wild-type PB2 activity. In addition, when tested at different temperatures in vivo, two mutant PB2 proteins showed a temperature-sensitive phenotype. The lack of interference shown by some N-terminal deletion mutants and the complete interference obtained with a C-terminal deletion mutant encoding only 124 amino acids indicated that this protein domain is responsible for interaction with another component of the polymerase, probably PB1. To further characterize the mutants, their ability to induce in vitro synthesis of viral cRNA or mRNA was tested by using ApG or beta-globin mRNA as a primer. One of the mutants, 1299, containing an isoleucine insertion at position 299, was able to induce cRNA and mRNA synthesis in ApG-primed reactions but required a higher beta-globin mRNA concentration than wild-type PB2 for detection of in vitro synthesis. This result suggested that mutant I299 has diminished cap-binding activity.
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PMID:Mutational analysis identifies functional domains in the influenza A virus PB2 polymerase subunit. 862 88

Human astroviruses use a (-1) ribosomal frameshift mechanism to regulate expression of the viral RNA-dependent RNA polymerase gene. To evaluate the efficiency of the astrovirus frameshift signal in cell culture, different regions of the frameshift signal were cloned into the rhesus rotavirus VP4 gene and expressed in an infection-transfection transient expression cell-culture system. The various astrovirus-VP4 constructs were transfected into BHK-21 cells infected with a recombinant vaccinia virus that expresses T7 RNA polymerase (vTF7-3). All constructs contain a T7 promoter, a picornavirus internal ribosome entry site, and a T7 terminator. Frameshifted and non-frameshifted proteins were distinguished by immunoprecipitation with monoclonal antibodies specific for either the VP4 amino- or carboxy-terminus. Frameshifting efficiency was calculated as the ratio of radioactive counts in the frameshifted protein to the total counts in both the frameshifted and nonframeshifted proteins as determined by Phosphorimager analysis. We found the efficiency of astrovirus frameshifting in intact cells to be 25-28%, significantly greater than the 5-7% efficiency reported previously in a cell-free uncoupled translation system. Since the transfected plasmid is expressed in the cytoplasm in the infection-transfection system, the frameshifting efficiency determined by this assay may be a more accurate reflection of the level of frameshifting for this RNA virus in which transcription and translation are likely coupled in the cytoplasm of infected cells. This hypothesis is supported by the observation that the level of astrovirus frameshifting is increased three-fold when evaluated in a cell-free coupled transcription-translation system. These studies also confirm in intact cells what was previously determined in cell-free studies: the shifty heptamer is an absolute requirement for astrovirus ribosomal frameshifting, but deletion of sequences downstream of the stem-loop that are potentially involved in pseudoknot formation does not affect the efficiency of frameshifting.
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PMID:Studies of the astrovirus signal that induces (-1) ribosomal frameshifting. 919 37

Recent insights into the early events in Sindbis virus RNA replication suggest a requirement for either the P123 or P23 polyprotein, as well as mature nsP4, the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase, for initiation of minus-strand RNA synthesis. Based on this observation, we have succeeded in reconstituting an in vitro system for template-dependent initiation of SIN RNA replication. Extracts were isolated from cells infected with vaccinia virus recombinants expressing various SIN proteins and assayed by the addition of exogenous template RNAs. Extracts from cells expressing P123C>S, a protease-defective P123 polyprotein, and nsP4 synthesized a genome-length minus-sense RNA product. Replicase activity was dependent upon addition of exogenous RNA and was specific for alphavirus plus-strand RNA templates. RNA synthesis was also obtained by coexpression of nsP1, P23C>S, and nsP4. However, extracts from cells expressing nsP4 and P123, a cleavage-competent P123 polyprotein, had much less replicase activity. In addition, a P123 polyprotein containing a mutation in the nsP2 protease which increased the efficiency of processing exhibited very little, if any, replicase activity. These results provide further evidence that processing of the polyprotein inactivates the minus-strand initiation complex. Finally, RNA synthesis was detected when soluble nsP4 was added to a membrane fraction containing P123C>S, thus providing a functional assay for purification of the nsP4 RNA polymerase.
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PMID:Template-dependent initiation of Sindbis virus RNA replication in vitro. 965 98

Most HIV-specific cytotoxic T-lymphocyte (CTL) epitopes have been identified using peptide-pulsed and recombinant vaccinia virus-infected targets. These systems may not accurately reflect the ability of epitopes to be presented by HIV-infected T cells. Recent studies suggest, in fact, that some CTL epitopes are poorly presented on HIV-infected cells. In this study, we have identified a novel A2.1-restricted HIV reverse-transcriptase (RT) epitope and investigated the presentation of this epitope by HIV-infected primary CD4+ T cells and T-cell lines. A CD8+ CTL clone, isolated from a seropositive subject that recognized a novel A2-restricted epitope KYTAFTIPSI (aa 293-302) in RT, was used for these studies. Primary CD4+ T cells and the CD4+ T-cell line T1 were infected with virus from T1-nPLAP, a cell line stably transfected with HXB-nPLAP, a molecular construct of HIV linked to a placental alkaline phosphatase (PLAP) marker gene. A uniformly infected cell population, obtained by immunomagnetic selection for PLAP expression, was used as targets in CTL assays. HIV-infected T cells were lysed by CTL recognizing this RT epitope as effectively as peptide-pulsed targets. This suggests that some RT epitopes are good targets for CTL recognition.
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PMID:Effective lysis of HIV-1-infected primary CD4+ T cells by a cytotoxic T-lymphocyte clone directed against a novel A2-restricted reverse-transcriptase epitope. 976 18

A cDNA corresponding to the coding region of VP1, the putative RNA-dependent RNA polymerase, of infectious bursal disease virus (IBDV) was cloned and inserted into the genome of a vaccinia virus inducible expression vector. The molecular mass and antigenic reactivity of VP1 expressed in mammalian cells are identical to those of its counterpart expressed in IBDV-infected cells. The results presented here demonstrate that VP1 is efficiently incorporated into IBDV virus-like particles (VLPs) produced in mammalian cells coexpressing the IBDV polyprotein and VP1. Incorporation of VP1 into VLPs requires neither the presence of IBDV RNAs nor that of the nonstructural polypeptide VP5. Immunofluorescence, confocal laser scanning microscopy, and immunoprecipitation analyses conclusively showed that VP1 forms complexes with the structural polypeptide VP3. Formation of VP1-VP3 complexes is likely to be a key step for the morphogenesis of IBDV particles.
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PMID:VP1, the putative RNA-dependent RNA polymerase of infectious bursal disease virus, forms complexes with the capsid protein VP3, leading to efficient encapsidation into virus-like particles. 1040 Jul 96

Ca2+ plays a key role in many pathological processes, including viral infections. Rotavirus, the major etiological agent of viral gastroenteritis in children and young animals, provides a useful model to study a number of Ca2+ dependent virus-cell interactions. Rotavirus entry, activation of transcription, morphogenesis, cell lysis, particle release, and the distant action of viral proteins are Ca2+ dependent processes. In the extracellular medium, Ca2+ stabilizes the structure of the viral capsid. During entry into the cell the low cytoplasmic Ca2+ concentration induced the solubilization of the outer protein layer of the capsid and transcriptase activation. Viral protein synthesis modifies Ca2+ homeostasis which, in turn, favours viral morphogenesis and induces cell death. The generation of diarrhea is a multifactorial process involving Ca2+ dependent secretory processes of mediators and water and electrolytes, as well as the induction of cell death in the different cell types that compose the intestinal epithelium. The discovery of the non-structural viral protein NSP4 as a viral enterotoxin and the possible participation of the enteric nervous system in the pathogenesis of diarrhea represent significant advances in its understanding. Ca2+ also plays a role in the replication cycles and pathogenesis of other viral diseases such as poliovirus, Coxsackie virus, cytomegalovirus, vaccinia and measles virus and HIV.
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PMID:Role of Ca2+in the replication and pathogenesis of rotavirus and other viral infections. 1102 Mar 76


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