Synthesis of a novel hepatitis C virus protein by ribosomal frameshift

Description

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is an important human pathogen that affects ∼100 million people worldwide. Its RNA genome codes for a polyprotein, which is cleaved by viral and cellular proteases to produce at least 10 mature viral protein products. We report here the discovery of a novel HCV protein synthesized by ribosomal frameshift. This protein, which we named the F protein, is synthesized from the initiation codon of the polyprotein sequence followed by ribosomal frameshift into the –2/+1 reading frame. This ribosomal frameshift requires only codons 8–14 of the core protein-coding sequence, and the shift junction is located at or near codon 11. An F protein analog synthesized in vitro reacted with the sera of HCV patients but not with the sera of hepatitis B patients, indicating the expression of the F protein during natural HCV infection. This unexpected finding may open new avenues for the development of anti-HCV drugs.

Resources

Name Format Description Link
21 Visit the original government dataset for complete information, documentation, and data access. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC125543/

Tags

  • hcv-infection
  • nih
  • viral-protein
  • hepatitis-c
  • ribosomal-frameshift

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