FIG. 1.

HNF4α activates synthesis of pre-C and pregenomic RNAs. Huh7 cells were cotransfected with pWT or the indicated NRRE mutant plasmid together with the indicated amount of HNF4α expression plasmid pCDMHNF4α or its parental plasmid. Shown is an autoradiogram of an 8 M urea-8% polyacrylamide gel indicating the results of primer extension analysis of the pre-C and pregenomic (preg) RNAs accumulated in the Huh7 cells by 48 h posttransfection. One-sixth of the RNA from a 60-mm-diameter dish of cells was used in each primer extension reaction. Arrows, positions of the viral and internal control β-Gal RNAs. Numbers at the bottom give the amounts of viral RNA in each lane relative to that synthesized from the wild-type (WT) genome in the absence of HNF4α overexpression. These numbers were determined with a PhosphorImager and normalized to the amount of β-Gal RNA present in the same sample and represent the means ± standard errors of the data obtained from three experiments similar to the one for which results are shown.