Publications by authors named "Emily Cannistraci"

Transcription regulators play central roles in orchestrating responses to changing environmental conditions. Recently the Caulobacter crescentus transcription activator DriD, which belongs to the newly defined WYL-domain family, was shown to regulate DNA damage responses independent of the canonical SOS pathway. However, the molecular mechanisms by which DriD and other WYL-regulators sense environmental signals and recognize DNA are not well understood.

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Kinetoplastid protists such as Trypanosoma brucei undergo an unusual process of mitochondrial uridine (U) insertion and deletion editing termed kinetoplastid RNA editing (kRNA editing). This extensive form of editing, which is mediated by guide RNAs (gRNAs), can involve the insertion of hundreds of Us and deletion of tens of Us to form a functional mitochondrial mRNA transcript. kRNA editing is catalyzed by the 20 S editosome/RECC.

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Article Synopsis
  • HIV-1 selectively packages two copies of its RNA genome during assembly, relying on the viral Gag protein and specific signals in the RNA’s structure for this process.
  • A critical 159-nucleotide region of the RNA that normally facilitates packaging shows poor efficiency when competing with the intact 5' leader, indicating that certain structural elements may hinder packaging.
  • The study reveals that effective packaging depends on both hiding the RNA's 5' cap from cellular machinery and exposing binding sites for the viral nucleocapsid protein, suggesting a complex mechanism that may be shared by other viruses that utilize similar RNA packaging strategies.
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Selective packaging of the HIV-1 genome during virus assembly is mediated by interactions between the dimeric 5'-leader of the unspliced viral RNA and the nucleocapsid (NC) domains of a small number of assembling viral Gag polyproteins. Here, we show that the dimeric 5'-leader contains more than two dozen NC binding sites with affinities ranging from 40 nM to 1.4 μM, and that all high-affinity sites ( ≲ 400 nM) reside within a ∼150-nt region of the leader sufficient to promote RNA packaging (core encapsidation signal, Ψ).

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