Convergence of RNA cis elements and cellular polyadenylation factors in the regulation of human cytomegalovirus UL37 exon 1 unspliced RNA production.

The human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) UL36-38 immediate early (IE) locus encodes proteins required for its growth. The UL37 promoter drives production of an unspliced and several alternatively spliced RNAs. The UL37 exon 1 (UL37x1) unspliced RNA is abundant from IE to late times of HCMV infection, whereas the UL37 spliced RNAs are markedly less abundant.

Human cytomegalovirus UL37 immediate early target minigene RNAs are accurately spliced and polyadenylated.

The human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) UL36-38 immediate early (IE) locus encodes proteins required for virus growth. The UL37 IE promoter drives production of differentially spliced and unspliced RNAs. To study their post-transcriptional processing, we generated target minigenes encoding each UL37 RNA splicing substrate.