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Journal of Virology, December 2006, p. 12414-12419, Vol. 80, No. 24
0022-538X/06/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/JVI.01374-06
Copyright © 2006, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Mutational Analysis of the Lassa Virus Promoter{triangledown}

Meike Hass, Martina Westerkofsky, Stefanie Müller, Beate Becker-Ziaja, Carola Busch, and Stephan Günther*

Department of Virology, Bernhard-Nocht-Institute for Tropical Medicine, 20359 Hamburg, Germany

Received 29 June 2006/ Accepted 19 September 2006

The promoter sequences directing viral gene expression and genome replication of arenaviruses reside within the 3' and 5' termini of each RNA segment. The terminal 19 nucleotides at both ends are highly conserved among all arenavirus species and are almost completely complementary to each other. This study aimed at characterizing the Lassa virus promoter in detail. The relevance of each position in the promoter was studied by site-directed mutagenesis using the Lassa virus minireplicon system. The data indicate that the Lassa virus promoter functions as a duplex, regulates transcription and replication in a coordinated manner, and is composed of two functional elements, a sequence-specific region from residue 1 to 12 and a variable complementary region from residue 13 to 19. The first region appears to interact with the replication complex mainly via base-specific interactions, while in the second region solely base pairing between 3' and 5' promoter ends is important for promoter function.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Bernhard-Nocht-Institute of Tropical Medicine, Bernhard-Nocht-Strasse 74, D-20359 Hamburg, Germany. Phone: 49 40 42818 421. Fax: 49 40 42818 378. E-mail: guenther{at}bni.uni-hamburg.de.

{triangledown} Published ahead of print on 27 September 2006.

Journal of Virology, December 2006, p. 12414-12419, Vol. 80, No. 24
0022-538X/06/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/JVI.01374-06
Copyright © 2006, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.



This article has been cited by other articles:

  • Lan, S., McLay Schelde, L., Wang, J., Kumar, N., Ly, H., Liang, Y. (2009). Development of Infectious Clones for Virulent and Avirulent Pichinde Viruses: a Model Virus To Study Arenavirus-Induced Hemorrhagic Fevers. J. Virol. 83: 6357-6362 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Hass, M., Lelke, M., Busch, C., Becker-Ziaja, B., Gunther, S. (2008). Mutational Evidence for a Structural Model of the Lassa Virus RNA Polymerase Domain and Identification of Two Residues, Gly1394 and Asp1395, That Are Critical for Transcription but Not Replication of the Genome. J. Virol. 82: 10207-10217 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Muller, S., Gunther, S. (2007). Broad-Spectrum Antiviral Activity of Small Interfering RNA Targeting the Conserved RNA Termini of Lassa Virus. Antimicrob. Agents Chemother. 51: 2215-2218 [Abstract] [Full Text]  


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