Barley yellow dwarf virus 5'UTR explained

Barley yellow dwarf virus 5' UTR
Symbol:	BYDV 5'UTR
Rfam:	RF01508
Rna Type:	cis-regulatory element
Tax Domain:	barley yellow dwarf

Barley yellow dwarf virus 5' UTR is a non-coding RNA element containing structural elements required for translation of the genome of the plant disease pathogen Barley yellow dwarf virus.

Unlike eukaryotic mRNA, this virus lacks a 5' cap and a poly(A) tail but still circularises its mRNA through base pairing between two stem loops, one located in the 5' untranslated region (UTR) and the other within the 3' UTR. The structure within the 3' UTR has been previously characterised as the 3' cap-independent translation element (3' TE element) and the 5' UTR of barley yellow dwarf virus has been predicted to contain 4 stem loop structures.^[1] Mutagenesis showed that stem loop 4 is essential for base pairing with 3'TE and only 5 bases are needed to base pair for mRNA circularization to occur.^[2]

Further reading

Malys N, McCarthy JE . Translation initiation: variations in the mechanism can be anticipated . Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences . 68 . 6 . 991–1003 . March 2011 . 21076851 . 10.1007/s00018-010-0588-z . 31720000 . 11115079 .

Notes and References

1. Wang S, Browning KS, Miller WA . A viral sequence in the 3'-untranslated region mimics a 5' cap in facilitating translation of uncapped mRNA . The EMBO Journal . 16 . 13 . 4107–4116 . July 1997 . 9233819 . 1170033 . 10.1093/emboj/16.13.4107 . Free full text .
2. Guo L, Allen EM, Miller WA . Base-pairing between untranslated regions facilitates translation of uncapped, nonpolyadenylated viral RNA . Molecular Cell . 7 . 5 . 1103–1109 . May 2001 . 11389856 . 10.1016/S1097-2765(01)00252-0 . free .