Jean-Christophe Paillart, Markus Dettenhofer, Xiao-Fang Yu, Chantal Ehresmann, Bernard Ehresmann, Roland Marquet
With the increasing interest of RNAs in regulating a range of cell biological processes, very little is known about the structure of RNAs in tissue culture cells. We focused on the 5'-untranslated region of the human immunodeficiency virus type 1 RNA genome, a highly conserved RNA region, which contains structural domains that regulate key steps in the viral replication cycle. Up until now, structural information only came from in vitro studies. Here, we developed chemical modification assays to test nucleotide accessibility directly in infected cells and viral particles, thus circumventing possible biases and artifacts linked to in vitro assays...
November 12, 2004: Journal of Biological Chemistry