5'Mercaptouridine-5'-diphosphate (hs5UDP) has been synthesized and investigated as a substrate of the polynucleotide phosphorylase of Micrococcus luteus. While hs5UDP is not utilized alone, it can be copolymerized with UDP; however, unusually for this enzyme, the ratio of 5'mercaptouridylate vs. uridylate residues in the polynucleotide product (MPU) is always lower than the ratio of hs5UDP v. U...

We have previously shown that a novel DNA vaccine technology of codon optimization and the addition of ubiquitin sequences enhanced immunogenicity of a herpes simplex virus 2 polynucleotide vaccine in mice, and induced cell-mediated immunity when administered in humans at relatively low doses of naked DNA. We here show that a new polynucleotide vaccine using the same technology and encoding a f...

The RNA degradosome of Escherichia coli is a ribonucleolytic multienzyme complex containing RNase E, polynucleotide phosphorylase, RhlB, and enolase. Previous in vitro and in vivo work has shown that RhlB facilitates the exonucleolytic degradation of structured mRNA decay intermediates by polynucleotide phosphorylase in an ATPase-dependent reaction. Here, we show that deleting the gene encoding...