Discontinuous and non-discontinuous subgenomic RNA transcription in a nidovirus
Arteri-, corona-, toro- and roniviruses are evolutionarily related positive-strand RNA viruses, united in the order Nidovirales. The best studied nidoviruses, the corona- and arteriviruses, employ a unique transcription mechanism, which involves discontinuous RNA synthesis, a process resembling similarity-assisted copy-choice RNA recombination. During infection, multiple subgenomic (sg) mRNAs are transcribed from a mirror set of sg negative-strand RNA templates. The sg mRNAs all possess a short 5′ common leader sequence, derived from the 5′ end of the genomic RNA. The joining of the non-contiguous ‘leader’ and ‘body’ sequences presumably occurs during minus-strand synthesis. To study whether toroviruses use a similar transcription mechanism, we characterized the 5′ termini of the genome and the four sg mRNAs of Berne virus (BEV). We show that BEV mRNAs 3–5 lack a leader sequence. Surprisingly, however, RNA 2 does contain a leader, identical to the 5′-terminal 18 residues of the genome. Apparently, BEV combines discontinuous and non-discontinous RNA synthesis to produce its sg mRNAs. Our findings have important implications for the understanding of the mechanism and evolution of nidovirus transcription.
Complete Metadata
| @type | dcat:Dataset |
|---|---|
| accessLevel | public |
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[
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| description | Arteri-, corona-, toro- and roniviruses are evolutionarily related positive-strand RNA viruses, united in the order Nidovirales. The best studied nidoviruses, the corona- and arteriviruses, employ a unique transcription mechanism, which involves discontinuous RNA synthesis, a process resembling similarity-assisted copy-choice RNA recombination. During infection, multiple subgenomic (sg) mRNAs are transcribed from a mirror set of sg negative-strand RNA templates. The sg mRNAs all possess a short 5′ common leader sequence, derived from the 5′ end of the genomic RNA. The joining of the non-contiguous ‘leader’ and ‘body’ sequences presumably occurs during minus-strand synthesis. To study whether toroviruses use a similar transcription mechanism, we characterized the 5′ termini of the genome and the four sg mRNAs of Berne virus (BEV). We show that BEV mRNAs 3–5 lack a leader sequence. Surprisingly, however, RNA 2 does contain a leader, identical to the 5′-terminal 18 residues of the genome. Apparently, BEV combines discontinuous and non-discontinous RNA synthesis to produce its sg mRNAs. Our findings have important implications for the understanding of the mechanism and evolution of nidovirus transcription. |
| distribution |
[
{
"@type": "dcat:Distribution",
"title": "Official Government Data Source",
"mediaType": "text/html",
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"downloadURL": "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC136939/"
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| identifier | https://healthdata.gov/api/views/k3vu-95iu |
| issued | 2025-07-14 |
| keyword |
[
"berne-virus",
"nidovirus-transcription",
"nih",
"rna-recombination",
"subgenomic-rna"
]
|
| landingPage | https://healthdata.gov/d/k3vu-95iu |
| modified | 2025-09-06 |
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| publisher |
{
"name": "National Institutes of Health",
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| theme |
[
"NIH"
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|
| title | Discontinuous and non-discontinuous subgenomic RNA transcription in a nidovirus |
