Studies into the mechanism for MHV transcription

Abstract

Previous studies have demonstrated that the MHV genome is divided into seven transcriptional units which are transcribed from highly conserved intergenic start sites (UCU/CAAAC) into mRNA containing a common leader RNA at the 5' end and a coterminal 3' end. In this manuscript, we provide evidence that an additional transcriptional unit is encoded at the 3' end of the MHV genome and is transcribed from a perfect intergenic region into a leader-containing ~800 nt mRNA. This mRNA could potentially encode a small 17-18 kDa protein which is identical to the C-terminal third of the nucleocapsid gene.