1887

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Volume 91, Issue 7

Development and characterization of promoterless helper RNAs for the production of alphavirus replicon particle Free

Abstract

Alphavirus-based replicon systems are frequently used as preclinical vectors and as antigen discovery tools, and they have recently been assessed in clinical vaccine trials. Typically, alphavirus replicon RNAs are delivered within virus-like replicon particles (VRP) that are produced following transfection of replicon RNA and two helper RNAs into permissive cells . The non-structural proteins expressed from the replicon RNA amplify the replicon RNA and the helper RNAs the latter providing the viral structural proteins necessary to package the replicon RNA into VRP. Current helper RNA designs incorporate the alphavirus 26S promoter to direct the transcription of high levels of structural gene mRNAs. We demonstrate here that the 26S promoter is not required on helper RNAs to produce VRP and propose that such promoterless helper RNAs, by design, reduce the probability of generating replication-competent virus that may otherwise result from RNA recombination.

  • Received:
  • Accepted:
  • Published Online:
© SGM
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2010-07-01
2024-04-20
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Development and characterization of promoterless helper RNAs for the production of alphavirus replicon particle
J. Gen. Virol. 91, 1723 (2010); https://doi.org/10.1099/vir.0.020081-0
/content/journal/jgv/10.1099/vir.0.020081-0
/content/journal/jgv/10.1099/vir.0.020081-0
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vol. , part 7, pp. 1723 - 1727

Northern blot analysis of standard, dH(FL) capsid and dH(FL)GP helper RNAs [PDF](53 KB)

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