Although parvoviruses are found throughout the animal kingdom, only the human pathogenic B19 virus has so far been shown to possess a limited host range, with erythroid progenitor cells as the main target cells supporting B19 propagation. The underlying mechanism of such erythroid tropism is still unexplained. Synthesis of the NS1 nonstructural protein occurs in permissive and nonpermissive cel...

The upstream pseudoknots domain (UPD) of Tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) is located at the 3'-untranslated region (UTR). It plays an important role in virus replication and translation. To determine the importance of UPD and 3'-UTR, and the effects of introduced RNA elements in TMV 3'-UTR, a series of TMV mutants with internal poly(A) tract upstream of UPD was constructed for structural analysis by ...

We have shown previously that GAP-43 gene expression during neuronal differentiation is controlled by selective changes in mRNA stability. This process was found to depend on highly conserved sequences in the 3' untranslated region (3' UTR) of the mRNA. To map the sequences in the GAP-43 3' UTR that mediate this post-transcriptional event, we generated specific 3' UTR deletion mutants and chime...

The brain produces two brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) transcripts, with either short or long 3' untranslated regions (3' UTRs). The physiological significance of the two forms of mRNAs encoding the same protein is unknown. Here, we show that the short and long 3' UTR BDNF mRNAs are involved in different cellular functions. The short 3' UTR mRNAs are restricted to somata, whereas the l...

Genetic variation in ABCB1, encoding P-glycoprotein (P-gp), is a potential cause of interindividual variation in drug response. Numerous studies have focused on the effects of coding region variants on P-gp expression and function, whereas few noncoding region variants have been investigated. The 3'-untranslated region (UTR) regulates mRNA levels or stability via RNA-protein interactions with m...

We previously created two PER2::LUCIFERASE (PER2::LUC) circadian reporter knockin mice that differ only in the Per2 3'-UTR region: Per2::Luc, which retains the endogenous Per2 3'-UTR and Per2::LucSV, where the endogenous Per2 3'-UTR was replaced by an SV40 late poly(A) signal. To delineate the in vivo functions of Per2 3'-UTR, we analyzed circadian rhythms of Per2::LucSV mice. Interestingly, Pe...