Figure 5.

Regulation of ARFP translation by HCV core protein. (A) Plasmids containing a stop codon in the 0 frame (*Q₂₀). Names of the plasmids are indicated on the panel. (B) Proteins resulting from plasmid expression in the 0 and +1 frames of constructs lacking the core ORF. (C) To study the effect of core in cis, we transfected cells with +1 frame constructs with or without the *Q₂₀ mutation. Luciferase activity corresponds to the translation in the +1 frame without mutation (black bars) and with the *Q₂₀ stop mutation (white bars). (D) To study the effect of core in trans, cells were transfected with +1 frame constructs containing the *Q₂₀ mutation and transduced with a control adenovirus (Ad control, white bars) or a HCV core-encoding adenovirus (Ad core, hatched bars). Luciferase activity was analyzed in the presence or absence of the HCV IRES as described earlier.