Splicing of SV40 mRNAs: A Novel Mechanism for the Regulation of Gene Expression in Animal Cells
This extract was created in the absence of an abstract.
Excerpt
Clarification of the complicated steps involved in transcription and processing of mRNA seems essential in order to understand the controls involved in gene expression in eukaryotic cells.
The use of animal viruses as model systems for probing the complexities of molecular control mechanisms has been particularly fruitful. It is generally felt that an understanding of genetic regulation in viruses will provide insight into similar regulatory processes in eukaryotic cells. The molecular biology of SV40 has been under intensive investigation for a number of years, and these studies have provided considerable information regarding the regulation of gene expression, in particular, transcriptional and posttranscriptional processing of mRNA.
SV40 provides several unique advantages as a model system for such studies. They include the following: (1) The viral genome is a small circular molecule (m. w. ∼ 3.4 × 106 daltons) which contains genetic information for only four to six proteins. The DNA can
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↵* Present address: Department of Genetics, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel.
