High degree of sequence variations are present throughout in the coding regions of Hepatitis C virus (HCV) genome. However, a high degree of sequence conservation within the 5'untranslated region (UTR) has made this region a target of choice for most of detection assays based on nucleic acid amplification. The current study was designed to determine the HCV genotypes in samples of HCV chronical...

The influence of an upstream open reading frame (ORF) in the 5'-untranslated region (UTR) of the mRNA on corticotropin-releasing hormone receptor type 1 (CRHR1) translation was studied in constructs containing the 5'-UTR of CRHR1, with or without an ATG-to-ATA mutation in the upstream ORF, and the main ORF of luciferase or CRHR1. Upstream mutation in luciferase constructs increased luciferase a...

Although microRNAs (miRNAs) have been documented to regulate development in plants and animals , the function of miRNAs in physiology is unclear. miR399 has multiple target sites in the 5' untranslated region (UTR) of a gene encoding a putative ubiquitin-conjugating enzyme (UBC) in Arabidopsis thaliana. We report here that miR399 was highly induced, whereas the target UBC mRNA was reduced by lo...

CDKN2A/p16INK4a is an essential tumor suppressor gene that controls cell cycle progression and replicative senescence. It is also the main melanoma susceptibility gene. Here we report that p16INK4a 5'UTR mRNA acts as a cellular Internal Ribosome Entry Site (IRES). The potential for p16INK4a 5'UTR to drive cap-independent translation was evaluated by dual-luciferase assays using bicistronic and ...

Understanding the regulation of insulin biosynthesis is important as it plays a central role in glucose metabolism. The mouse insulin gene2 (Ins2) has two splice variants; long (Ins2L) and short (Ins2S), that differ only in their 5'UTR sequence and Ins2S is the major transcript which translate more efficiently as compared to Ins2L. Here, we show that cellular factors bind preferentially to the ...

Boron (B) is an essential plant micronutrient that is toxic at higher levels. NIP5;1 is a boric acid channel required for B uptake and growth under B deficiency. Accumulation of the NIP5;1 transcript is upregulated under B deficiency in Arabidopsis thaliana roots. To elucidate the mechanism of regulation, the 5' untranslated region (UTR) of NIP5;1 was tested for its ability to confer B-dependen...

Measles, caused by measles virus (MeV) infection, is the leading cause of death in children because of secondary infections attributable to MeV-induced immune suppression. Recently, we have shown that wild-type MeVs induce the suppression of protein synthesis in host cells (referred to as "shutoff") and that viral mRNAs are preferentially translated under shutoff conditions in infected cells. T...

We have used the Escherichia coli beta-glucuronidase (uidA) gene as a reporter gene to localize the promoter and analyze the function of the 5' untranslated region (UTR) of the Chlamydomonas chloroplast petD gene. Using particle bombardment, petD-uidA transcriptional and translational fusion genes were introduced into the chloroplast genome in the large inverted repeat flanking the atpB gene. I...

Transcripts of the ntp303 gene accumulate abundantly throughout pollen development, whereas the protein only accumulates to detectable levels after pollen germination. In an attempt to explain the divergence in the accumulation profiles of the mRNA and the protein, we investigated the role of the untranslated regions (UTRs) in enhancing ntp303 translation during the transition from developing t...