In Vitro Transcribed RNA-based Luciferase Reporter Assay to Study Translation Regulation in Poxvirus-infected Cells. Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • Every poxvirus mRNA transcribed after viral DNA replication has an evolutionarily conserved, non-templated 5'-poly(A) leader in the 5'-UTR. To dissect the role of 5'-poly(A) leader in mRNA translation during poxvirus infection we developed an in vitro transcribed RNA-based luciferase reporter assay. This reporter assay comprises of four core steps: (1) PCR to amplify the DNA template for in vitro transcription; (2) in vitro transcription to generate mRNA using T7 RNA polymerase; (3) Transfection to introduce in vitro transcribed mRNA into cells; (4) Detection of luciferase activity as the indicator of translation. The RNA-based luciferase reporter assay described here circumvents issues of plasmid replication in poxvirus-infected cells and cryptic transcription from the plasmid. This protocol can be used to determine translation regulation by cis-elements in an mRNA including 5'-UTR and 3'-UTR in systems other than poxvirus-infected cells. Moreover, different modes of translation initiation like cap-dependent, cap-independent, re-initiation, and internal initiation can be investigated using this method.

published proceedings

  • J Vis Exp

altmetric score

  • 3.35

author list (cited authors)

  • Dhungel, P., Cantu, F., Hernandez, C., & Yang, Z.

citation count

  • 5

complete list of authors

  • Dhungel, Pragyesh||Cantu, Fernando||Hernandez, Candy||Yang, Zhilong

publication date

  • January 2019