Importance of codon usage for the temporal regulation of viral gene expression.
The glycoproteins of herpesviruses and of HIV/SIV are made late in the replication cycle and are derived from transcripts that use an unusual codon usage that is quite different from that of the host cell. Here we show that the actions of natural transinducers from these two different families of persistent viruses (Rev of SIV and ORF57 of the rhesus monkey rhadinovirus) are dependent on the nature of the skewed codon usage. In fact, the transinducibility of expression of these glycoproteins by Rev and by ORF57 can be flipped simply by changing the nature of the codon usage. Even expression of a luciferase reporter could be made Rev dependent or ORF57 dependent by distinctive changes to its codon usage. Our findings point to a new general principle in which different families of persisting viruses use a poor codon usage that is skewed in a distinctive way to temporally regulate late expression of structural gene products.
Department of Pathology, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, FL 33136;
Young C
YC
Shin
Department of Pathology, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, FL 33136; Institute of Clinical and Molecular Virology, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, 91054 Erlangen, Germany.
Georg F
GF
Bischof
Department of Pathology, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, FL 33136;
William A
WA
Lauer
Department of Pathology, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, FL 33136; r.desrosiers@med.miami.edu.
Ronald C
RC
Desrosiers
D001483:Base Sequence; D003062:Codon / Q000235:genetics*; D017931:DNA Primers / Q000235:genetics; D018076:DNA, Complementary / Q000235:genetics; D015967:Gene Expression Regulation, Viral / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D057809:HEK293 Cells; D006801:Humans; D008156:Luciferases; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010957:Plasmids / Q000235:genetics; D016415:Sequence Alignment; D013045:Species Specificity; D013997:Time Factors; D054334:Viral Regulatory and Accessory Proteins / Q000235:genetics*
D003062:Codon; D017931:DNA Primers; D018076:DNA, Complementary; D054334:Viral Regulatory and Accessory Proteins; D008156:Luciferases
RRV ORF57; SIV Rev; codon usage; glycoprotein induction; temporal regulation