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In vitro Transcription and Capping of Gaussia Luciferase mRNA Followed by HeLa Cell Transfection
Published on: March 26, 2012
An unconventional pathway of mRNA cap formation by vesiculoviruses
Tomoaki Ogino1, Amiya K Banerjee
1Department of Molecular Genetics, Section of Virology, Lerner Research Institute, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH 44195, USA. oginot@ccf.org
Abstract:
mRNAs of vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV), a prototype of nonsegmented negative strand (NNS) RNA viruses (e.g., rabies, measles, mumps, Ebola, and Borna disease viruses), possess the 5'-terminal cap structure identical to that of eukaryotic mRNAs, but the mechanism of mRNA cap formation is distinctly different from the latter. The elucidation of the unconventional capping of VSV mRNA remained elusive for three decades since the discovery of the cap structure in some viral and eukaryotic mRNAs in 1975. Only recently our biochemical studies revealed an unexpected strategy employed by vesiculoviruses (VSV and Chandipura virus, an emerging arbovirus) to generate the cap structure. This article summarizes the historical and current research that led to the discovery of the novel vesiculoviral mRNA capping reaction.
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