Two strong 5' splice sites and competing, suboptimal 3' splice sites involved in alternative splicing of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 RNA. Virology 1995 Nov 10;213(2):373-85
Date
11/10/1995Pubmed ID
7491762DOI
10.1006/viro.1995.0010Scopus ID
2-s2.0-0028807036 (requires institutional sign-in at Scopus site) 101 CitationsAbstract
The human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) genome contains 20 exons that are alternatively spliced from 16 splice sites to generate more than 40 different mRNAs, including incompletely spliced and unspliced mRNAs. In contrast to avian retroviral RNA, which has a cis-acting element in gag that negatively regulates splicing (NRS), HIV-1 RNA did not have any NRS sequences in the gag or pol genes detectable by a splicing inhibition assay. However, this assay demonstrated that the HIV-1 first 5' splice site competed with a cellular 5' splice site, suggesting that HIV-1 may have some strong splice sites. To extend this observation, we used a splice site swapping strategy to determine the efficiency of 14 HIV-1 splice sites in human beta globin chimeras tested in transient transfection experiments. While the 1st HIV-1 5' splice site used in all spliced transcripts and the 4th 5' splice site used in most of the 2-kb transcripts were efficient, the other splice sites, including all the 3' splice sites, were less efficient, ranging in use from 25 to 60%. We propose that this range of splice site efficiencies contributes to the regulation of alternative splicing of HIV-1 mRNAs.
Author List
O'Reilly MM, McNally MT, Beemon KLMESH terms used to index this publication - Major topics in bold
Alternative SplicingBase Sequence
Binding Sites
Cell Line, Transformed
Exons
Genes, myc
Genetic Engineering
Genome, Viral
Globins
HIV-1
Humans
Molecular Sequence Data
RNA, Messenger
RNA, Viral
Transfection
