Open AccessNucleotide Sequence at the 5′ Extremity of Tobacco‐Mosaic‐Virus RNA
Author(s) -
JONARD Gérard,
RICHARDS Kenneth,
MOHIER Eliane,
GERLINGER Pierre
Publication year - 1978
Publication title -
european journal of biochemistry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1432-1033
pISSN - 0014-2956
DOI - 10.1111/j.1432-1033.1978.tb12195.x
Subject(s) - start codon , guanosine , biology , genetics , rna , nucleotide , sequence (biology) , coding region , eukaryotic translation , stop codon , nucleic acid sequence , ribosome , transfer rna , translation (biology) , virology , messenger rna , gene
In the preceding paper it was shown that the first A‐U‐G codon in tobacco mosaic virus RNA is separated from the 5′ terminus by a sequence of 68 nucleotides devoid of internal guanosine residues. In this paper we present the sequence of 165 residues immediately following the first potential initiation codon. The characterized sequence contains four nonsense codons but none are in phase with the prospective initiation codon. Several lines of evidence, including direct characterization of the portion of the RNA molecule which binds to and is protected by the ribosome in the course of initiation. all support the idea that the A‐U‐G at position 69–71 is a functional initiation signal for viral protein synthesis.