title: Identification of the alternative splicing of the UL49 locus of human cytomegalovirus.
abstract: The UL49 ORF of human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) is essential for viral replication; conserved among all herpes viruses; however, the function is unclear. Once the UL49 ORF was precisely deleted from the start to stop codon, the mutant did not yield infectious progeny. In this study, we find out many alternatively processed ESTs in UL49 locus in HCMV-infected cells, in which there are two novel transcription termination sites in UL49 locus. Most of these ESTs are rare transcripts that contain directed repeat sequences in the intron splicing regions. There is a typical GU-AG intron splicing site in UL49Y transcripts. The 1847 bp UL49Y cDNA spans an ORF from 335 to 1618 and encodes a putative protein of 427 amino acids with a predicted molecular mass of 47.1 kDa. All the new EST sequences and UL49Y cDNA sequence have been deposited in the GenBank database (GenBank Accession nos. GW314860-GW314900 and GU376796). This study provides us with very important clues for revealing the importance of the UL49 locus alternative splicing.
authors: Department of Biotechnology, College of Life Science and Technology, Jinan University, Guangzhou 510632, China ; Department of Parasitology, Medical School, Jinan University, Guangzhou 510632, China.
authors: Guang
authors: G
authors: Yang
authors: Department of Biotechnology, College of Life Science and Technology, Jinan University, Guangzhou 510632, China.
authors: Wei
authors: W
authors: Li
authors: Department of Biotechnology, College of Life Science and Technology, Jinan University, Guangzhou 510632, China.
authors: Wenzhen
authors: W
authors: Liao
authors: Department of Biotechnology, College of Life Science and Technology, Jinan University, Guangzhou 510632, China.
authors: Xin
authors: X
authors: Zhang
authors: Department of Biotechnology, College of Life Science and Technology, Jinan University, Guangzhou 510632, China.
authors: Yi
authors: Y
authors: Zou
authors: Department of Biotechnology, College of Life Science and Technology, Jinan University, Guangzhou 510632, China.
authors: Jianfeng
authors: J
authors: Dai
authors: Department of Biotechnology, College of Life Science and Technology, Jinan University, Guangzhou 510632, China.
authors: Yueqin
authors: Y
authors: Li
authors: Department of Parasitology, Medical School, Jinan University, Guangzhou 510632, China.
authors: Chunxia
authors: C
authors: Jing
authors: Department of Biotechnology, College of Life Science and Technology, Jinan University, Guangzhou 510632, China.
authors: Tianhong
authors: T
authors: Zhou
mesh_terms: D017398:Alternative Splicing / Q000502:physiology*; D001483:Base Sequence; D003587:Cytomegalovirus / Q000502:physiology*; D015967:Gene Expression Regulation, Viral / Q000502:physiology*; D056426:Genetic Loci / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D016366:Open Reading Frames / Q000502:physiology*; D014764:Viral Proteins / Q000096:biosynthesis / Q000235:genetics
chemical_list: C583953:UL49 protein, human cytomegalovirus; D014764:Viral Proteins