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Journal of Virology, August 2001, p. 6901-6913, Vol. 75, No. 15
0022-538X/01/$04.00+0   DOI: 10.1128/JVI.75.15.6901-6913.2001
Copyright © 2001, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.

Polymerase Slippage at Vesicular Stomatitis Virus Gene Junctions To Generate Poly(A) Is Regulated by the Upstream 3'-AUAC-5' Tetranucleotide: Implications for the Mechanism of Transcription Termination

John N. Barr and Gail W. Wertz*

Department of Microbiology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama 35294

Received 20 March 2001/Accepted 8 May 2001

Termination of mRNA synthesis in vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV), the prototypic rhabdovirus, is controlled by a 13-nucleotide gene end sequence which comprises the conserved tetranucleotide 3'-AUAC-5', the U7 tract and the intergenic dinucleotide. mRNAs terminated at this sequence possess 100- to 300-nucleotide-long 3' poly(A) tails which are thought to result from polymerase slippage (reiterative transcription) by the VSV polymerase on the U7 tract. Previously we determined that in addition to the AUAC tetranucleotide, the U7 tract was an essential signal in the termination process. Shortening or interrupting the U7 tract abolished termination. These altered U tracts also prevented the polymerase from performing reiterative transcription necessary for generation of the mRNA poly(A) tail and thus established seven residues as the minimum length of U tract that allowed reiterative transcription to occur. In this study we investigated whether sequences other than the essential U7 tract are involved in controlling polymerase slippage. We investigated whether the AUAC tetranucleotide affected the process of reiterative transcription by analyzing the nucleotide sequence of RNAs transcribed from altered subgenomic templates and infectious VSV variants. The tetranucleotide was found to regulate reiterative transcription on the U7 tract. The extent of polymerase slippage was governed not by specific tetranucleotide sequences but rather by nucleotide composition such that slippage occurred when the tetranucleotide was composed of A or U residues but not when it was composed of G or C residues. This suggested that polymerase slippage was controlled, at least in part, by the strength of base pairing between the template and nascent strands. Further data presented here indicate that the tetranucleotide contains both a signal that directs the VSV polymerase to slip on the downstream U7 tract and also a signal that directs a slipping polymerase to terminate mRNA synthesis.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of Microbiology, BBRB 17/373, 845 19th St. South, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35294-2170. Phone: (205) 934 0877. Fax: (205) 934 1636. E-mail: gail_wertz{at}microbio.uab.edu.

Journal of Virology, August 2001, p. 6901-6913, Vol. 75, No. 15
0022-538X/01/$04.00+0   DOI: 10.1128/JVI.75.15.6901-6913.2001
Copyright © 2001, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.


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