Translational Stability of Plant Viral RNAs Microinjected into Living Cells

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Three different alternative structural features were shown to be present at the 3'' terminus of plant viral RNA: a poly(A) track, a tRNA-like structure, no special structural or sequence characteristic. The translational stability was compared after injection into frog oocytes of a representative of each of the following types: the small genomic RNA (M-RNA) of cowpea mosaic virus (CPMV), the subgenomic mRNA for coat protein (RNA 4) of brome mosaic virus (BMV) and the subgenomic mRNA for coat protein (RNA 4) of alfalfa mosaic virus (AlMV). CPMV M-RNA exhibits the highest translational stability. The stability of AlMV RNA 4 is remarkably high and significantly higher than that of BMV RNA 4. For all 3 viral RNA spp. considered, the presence of a poly(A) segment at the 3'' end of the molecules improves the translational stability. From a comparative investigation in which AlMV RNA 4 was also injected into [human cervical carcinoma] HeLa cells, it is concluded that the stability of a given non-adenylylated mRNA depends on the nature of the cytoplastic environment.