TY - JOUR
T1 - Structural and functional organization of the human endogenous retroviral ERV9 sequences
AU - Lania, Luigi
AU - Cristofano, Antonio Di
AU - Strazzullo, Maria
AU - Pengue, Gina
AU - Majello, Barbara
AU - Mantia, Girolama La
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank Dr. J. Pulitzer for helping in the preparation of the manuscript. We also thank Miss R. Terracciano for skillful technical help. This work was paid for by grants from the Italian Association for Cancer Research (AIRC) and from the AIDS program of the lstituto Superiore di Sanitfi (Rome) to L.L., and MURST to G.L.M. G.P. is recipient of an AIRC fellowship.
PY - 1992/11
Y1 - 1992/11
N2 - The human genome contains a variety of genetic elements similar in structure to retroviruses and retrotransposons. We report here the structural and functional organization of a novel human endogenous retroviral family (ERV9). Three polyadenylated RNAs, 8, 2, and 1.5 kb long, are detected by Northern blot in undifferentiated embryonal carcinoma NT2/D1 cells. Upon genomic cloning of an expressed ERV9 locus, we demonstrated that the three polyadenylated RNAs are originated by a single ERV9 locus by alternative usage of splicing and polyadenylation signals. DNA sequence analysis of different ERV9 LTRs have revealed that they are heterogeneous in length and that the length variability is due to the number of tandemly repeated subelements present in both U3 and U5 regions; moreover, the ERV9 LTRs are capable to drive expression of a reporter gene in transient expression assays. Finally, analysis of the ERV9 5′ transcription start site has allowed us to define the U3-R-U5 organization of the ERV9 LTR.
AB - The human genome contains a variety of genetic elements similar in structure to retroviruses and retrotransposons. We report here the structural and functional organization of a novel human endogenous retroviral family (ERV9). Three polyadenylated RNAs, 8, 2, and 1.5 kb long, are detected by Northern blot in undifferentiated embryonal carcinoma NT2/D1 cells. Upon genomic cloning of an expressed ERV9 locus, we demonstrated that the three polyadenylated RNAs are originated by a single ERV9 locus by alternative usage of splicing and polyadenylation signals. DNA sequence analysis of different ERV9 LTRs have revealed that they are heterogeneous in length and that the length variability is due to the number of tandemly repeated subelements present in both U3 and U5 regions; moreover, the ERV9 LTRs are capable to drive expression of a reporter gene in transient expression assays. Finally, analysis of the ERV9 5′ transcription start site has allowed us to define the U3-R-U5 organization of the ERV9 LTR.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=0026787143&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=0026787143&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/0042-6822(92)90211-7
DO - 10.1016/0042-6822(92)90211-7
M3 - Article
C2 - 1413518
AN - SCOPUS:0026787143
VL - 191
SP - 464
EP - 468
JO - Virology
JF - Virology
SN - 0042-6822
IS - 1
ER -