Abigail Brown
Hi,
My name is Abby Brown, and I am studying how the Hepatitis Delta Virus regulates replication and mRNA synthesis in the lab of Dr. Michael Been.
HDV genomic RNA is a template for both the intact antigenomic RNA used for replication and the polyadenylated mRNA necessary for synthesis of the delta antigen. We propose a model in which alternative and mutually exclusive secondary structure elements favor either ribozyme processing of HDV antigenomic RNA for replication or polyadenylation for mRNA synthesis. In this model, either the antigenomic ribozyme folds into the active conformation required for processing replication products, or the antigenomic RNA folds into a secondary structure that unmasks polyadenylation sequence elements, which thereby promotes polyadenylation of the mRNA.
I am currently testing this model by investigating ribozyme cleavage and polyadenylation separately in vitro, and I am also planning to eventually study how these two mutually exclusive forms of RNA processing are regulated in
vivo.
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