The 0.3-kb fragment containing the R-U5-5'leader sequence of Friend murine leukemia virus influences the level of protein expression from spliced mRNA.

Background: A neuropathogenic variant of Friend murine leukemia virus (Fr-MLV) clone A8 induces spongiform neurodegeneration when infected into neonatal rats. Studies with chimeras constructed from the A8 virus and the non-neuropathogenic Fr-MLV clone 57 identified a 0.3-kb KpnI-AatII fragment containing a R-U5-5'leader sequence as an important determinant for inducing spongiosis, in addition to the env gene of A8 as the primary determinant. This 0.3-kb fragment contains a 17-nucleotide difference between the A8 and 57 sequences. We previously showed that the 0.3-kb fragment influences expression levels of Env protein in both cultured cells and rat brain, but the corresponding molecular mechanisms are not well understood.

Results: Studies with expression vectors constructed from the full-length proviral genome of Fr-MLV that incorporated the luciferase (luc) gene instead of the env gene found that the vector containing the A8-0.3-kb fragment yielded a larger amount of spliced luc-mRNA and showed higher expression of luciferase when compared to the vector containing the 57-0.3-kb fragment. The amount of total transcripts from the vectors, the poly (A) tail length of their mRNAs, and the nuclear-cytoplasm distribution of luc-mRNA in transfected cells were also evaluated. The 0.3-kb fragment did not influence transcription efficiency, mRNA polyadenylation or nuclear export of luc-mRNA. Mutational analyses were carried out to determine the importance of nucleotides that differ between the A8 and 57 sequences within the 0.3-kb fragment. In particular, seven nucleotides upstream of the 5'splice site (5'ss) were found to be important in regulating the level of protein expression from spliced messages. Interestingly, these nucleotides reside within the stem-loop structure that has been speculated to limit the recognition of 5'ss.

Conclusions: The 0.3-kb fragment containing the R-U5-5'leader sequence of Fr-MLV influences the level of protein expression from the spliced-mRNA by regulating the splicing efficiency rather than transcription, nuclear export of spliced-mRNA, or poly (A) addition to mRNA. Seven nucleotides in the 0.3-kb fragment, which reside within the stem-loop structure that has been speculated to limit recognition of the 5'ss, could pinpoint the function of this region.