The seven genes of the Zaire Ebola virus (ZEBOV) are flanked in the RNA genome through highly conserved transcriptional start and stop signals. At the gene borders the stop signal of the preceding and the start signal of the following gene meet one another in different way. Either the two signals overlap, or they are separated by intergenetic regions (IR) of variable length and sequence. Unsegmented negative line RNA viruses possess only one transcriptional promoter located at the 3´- end of the. The cis active signals at the gene borders control all processes via interaction with the viral polymerase, like termination and reinitiation of the transcription as well as the capping and polyadenylation of the mRNA.
A possibility to regulate the synthesis rate of virale mRNA and thus the production of virale proteins, is to induce the creation of more polycistronic (readthrough) mRNAs by skipping the transcriptional stop signals.
Such transcriptions have not been described so far for ZEBOV.
In the context of this work however they could be verified in virus-infected cells.
These cells were created independent of the structure of the gene borders, i.e. as well in those with overlapping transcriptional signals and those with IR separated transcriptional signals.
Kristina, Brauburger (138943648): Die Rolle der Gengrenzen in der Transkriptionsregulation von Zaire Ebolavirus. : Philipps-Universität Marburg 2009-09-02. DOI: https://doi.org/10.17192/z2009.0464.
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