title: Temporal control of message stability in the life cycle of double-stranded RNA bacteriophage phi8.
abstract: The cystoviruses have genomes of three double-stranded RNA segments. The genes of the L transcript are expressed early in infection, while those of M and S are expressed late. In all cystovirus groups but one, the quantity of the L transcript late in infection is lower than those of the other two because of transcriptional control. In bacteriophage Phi8 and its close relatives, transcription of L is not controlled; instead, the L transcript is turned over rapidly late in infection. The three messages are produced in approximately equal amounts early in infection, but the amount of L is less than 10% of the amounts of the others late in infection. The decay of the Phi8 L message depends upon the production of protein Hb, which is encoded in segment L. It also depends upon a target site within the H gene region. Phage mutants lacking either the Hb gene or the target region do not show the late control of L message quantity. In addition to having a role as a negative regulator, Hb functions to neutralize the activity of protein J, encoded by segment S, which causes the degradation of all viral transcripts.
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology, the Public Health Research Institute, Newark, New Jersey 07103, USA.
authors.forename: Xueying
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Qiao
authors.forename: Yang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.forename: Jian
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Qiao
authors.forename: Leonard
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Mindich
mesh_terms: D017910:Cystoviridae / Q000502:physiology*; D015967:Gene Expression Regulation, Viral; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D050505:Mutant Proteins / Q000378:metabolism; D016366:Open Reading Frames; D020871:RNA Stability; D012367:RNA, Viral / Q000378:metabolism*; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D014764:Viral Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D050505:Mutant Proteins; D012367:RNA, Viral; D014764:Viral Proteins