BACKGROUND In recent years, avian influenza viruses (AIVs) have seriously threatened human health. Questions such as: why do AIVs infect humans?, how quickly can an AIV become pandemic?, and which virus is the most dangerous? cannot be sufficiently answered using current bioinformatic studies. METHOD Secondary structures and energies of representative 5'-untranslated region (UTR) of the HA ge...

RPCI-42 Bovine Bacterial Artificial Chromosome (BAC) library was screened with oligonucleotide sequences corresponding to specific elements of the 5 UTR sequence of bovine PC and to a region of the coding sequence. Two BACs that hybridized to all probes were selected for further analysis. A partial restriction map of the BACs was made with oligonucleotides corresponding to the coding region and...

Dysfunction of hepatocyte nuclear factor 4α (HNF4α) has been linked to maturity onset diabetes of the young (MODY1), diabetes type II and possibly to renal cell carcinoma (RCC). Whereas diabetes causing mutations are well known, there are no HNF4A mutations found in RCC. Since so far analyses have been constricted to the promoter and open reading frame of HNF4A, we performed a systematic analys...

Eukaryotic mRNAs are headed by a stretch of noncoding sequence, the 5' untranslated region (UTR). It has been proposed that the length of 5' UTRs is selectively neutral and evolves under a process of stochastic destruction and recruitment of core promoter elements, combined with selection against the premature initiation of translation. We test this null model by investigating whether 5' UTR le...

The 3' untranslated region (UTR) of turnip crinkle virus (TCV) RNA is 253 nt long (nt 3798-4050) with a 27 nt hairpin structure near its 3' terminus. In this study, the roles of the 3' UTR in virus accumulation were investigated in protoplasts of Hibiscus cannabinus L. and Arabidopsis thaliana (L.) Heynh. Our results showed that, in Hibiscus protoplasts, the minimal 3' UTR essential for TCV acc...

HOX11 encodes a homeodomain-containing transcription factor which directs the development of the spleen during embryogenesis. While HOX11 expression is normally silenced through an unknown mechanism in all tissues by adulthood, the deregulation of HOX11 expression is associated with leukemia, such as T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia. The elucidation of regulatory elements contributing to the...

Modified nucleotide chemistries that increase the half-life (T1/2) of transfected recombinant mRNA and the use of non-native 5'- and 3'-untranslated region (UTR) sequences that enhance protein translation are advancing the prospects of transcript therapy. To this end, a set of UTR sequences that are present in mRNAs with long cellular T1/2 were synthesized and cloned as five different recombina...

3'-Untranslated region (3'UTR) engineering was investigated to improve solubility of heterologous proteins (e.g., Baeyer-Villiger monooxygenases (BVMOs)) in Escherichia coli. Insertion of gene fragments containing putative RNase E recognition sites into the 3'UTR of the BVMO genes led to the reduction of mRNA levels in E. coli. Importantly, the amounts of soluble BVMOs were remarkably enhanced ...

The presence of cellular factors that bind to the 3' untranslated region (UTR) of picornaviruses was investigated by electrophoretic mobility shift assays (EMSAs). A cellular factor(s) that binds specifically the 3' UTR of polio-, coxsackie- and rhinoviruses was detected. Furthermore, this factor(s) is distinct from those which bind to the 5' terminal 88 nt (the 'cloverleaf') of poliovirus. Mut...