Part:BBa_K3338004

Internal ribosome entry site (IRES) for use in eukaryotic cells

Usage and Biology

The internal ribosome entry site (IRES) as descripted here was originally derived from the Hepatitis C virus (HCV) sequence. It is located within the 5’UTRs of the HCV genome and forms a complex 3D secondary structure making it capable of binding 40s ribosomal subunits and thus induces translation of the following gene (Beales et al. 2001, Lytle et al. 2002). This mechanism is independent of a 5’ cap structure and many of the initiation factors associated with it (Beales et al. 2001). Such structures are found in many viral genomes but only a small number of eukaryotic mRNAs where they are used to form polycistronic mRNAs (Beales et al. 2001, Karginov et al. 2017). In synthetic biology it is used to build synthetic polycistronic mRNAs for expression of multiple genes under control of one promoter (for example Chen et al. 2009).

Sequence and Features

Assembly Compatibility:

• 10
  COMPATIBLE WITH RFC[10]
• 12
  COMPATIBLE WITH RFC[12]
• 21
  COMPATIBLE WITH RFC[21]
• 23
  COMPATIBLE WITH RFC[23]
• 25
  COMPATIBLE WITH RFC[25]
• 1000
  COMPATIBLE WITH RFC[1000]

References

Beales, L. P., Rowlands, D. J., & Holzenburg, A. (2001). The internal ribosome entry site (IRES) of hepatitis C virus visualized by electron microscopy. RNA (New York, N.Y.), 7(5), 661–670.

Lytle, J. R., Wu, L., & Robertson, H. D. (2002). Domains on the hepatitis C virus internal ribosome entry site for 40s subunit binding. RNA (New York, N.Y.), 8(8), 1045–1055.

Karginov, T. A., Pastor, D., Semler, B. L., & Gomez, C. M. (2017). Mammalian Polycistronic mRNAs and Disease. Trends in genetics: TIG, 33(2), 129–142.

Chen, W. S., Chang, Y. C., Chen, Y. J., Chen, Y. J., Teng, C. Y., Wang, C. H., & Wu, T. Y. (2009). Development of a prokaryotic-like polycistronic baculovirus expression vector by the linkage of two internal ribosome entry sites. Journal of virological methods, 159(2), 152–159.