title: Retroviral strategy to stabilize viral RNA.
abstract: Unspliced Rous sarcoma virus (RSV) retroviral mRNA undergoes nonsense-mediated RNA decay (NMD) if it has premature termination codons in the gag gene. However, its normal gag termination codon is not subject to NMD despite being 7kb from the 3' poly(A) sequence. An RNA stability element (RSE) has been identified immediately downstream of gag in the RSV genome. It appears to determine the proper context for translation termination and protects the RNA from NMD. The viral stability element may prevent Up-frameshift 1 (Upf1) protein from interacting with the terminating ribosome and release factors to initiate NMD.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218, United States.
authors.forename: Bao Lin
authors.initials: BL
authors.lastname: Quek
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218, United States. Electronic address: klb@jhu.edu.
authors.forename: Karen
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Beemon
mesh_terms: D018389:Codon, Nonsense; D015683:Gene Products, gag / Q000235:genetics; D059365:Nonsense Mediated mRNA Decay; D012367:RNA, Viral / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism*; D052736:Rous sarcoma virus / Q000235:genetics*
chemical_list: D018389:Codon, Nonsense; D015683:Gene Products, gag; D012367:RNA, Viral