title: Mutagenesis analysis of the self-cleavage domain of hepatitis delta virus antigenomic RNA.
abstract: To determine the sequence requirements and structural features of the self-cleavage domain of hepatitis delta virus (HDV) antigenomic RNA, we constructed a series of mutants and measured the rate constant of the cleavage reaction for each. The self-cleavage activity of HDV RNA of antigenomic sense was found to reside in a region of less than 90 nucleotides in length. The catalytic domain contained a long complementary sequence which could be deleted to half of its original size. Moreover, this region could be replaced by other sequences as long as they could fold into a stem-and-loop structure. The catalytic domain also required a 6-basepair helix adjacent to the cleaving point for activity. The structural features of these two base-pairing regions are quite similar to those of the HDV genomic self-cleavage domain. The cleavage site as well as the the hinge region (the sequence between the two stems) requires specific sequences for activity.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Molecular Biology, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China.
authors.forename: H N
authors.initials: HN
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.forename: Z S
authors.initials: ZS
authors.lastname: Huang
mesh_terms: D001483:Base Sequence; D003001:Cloning, Molecular; D003698:Hepatitis Delta Virus / Q000235:genetics*; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D016296:Mutagenesis; D012367:RNA, Viral / Q000235:genetics*
chemical_list: D012367:RNA, Viral