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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America logoLink to Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
. 1986 Jan;83(2):256–260. doi: 10.1073/pnas.83.2.256

Transcriptional control of herpesvirus gene expression: gene functions required for positive and negative regulation.

P J Godowski, D M Knipe
PMCID: PMC322836  PMID: 3001729

Abstract

We have used an in vitro nuclear run-off assay to measure the levels of transcription of specific herpes simplex virus genes at different times during a lytic infection. We analyzed the effects of inhibition of DNA replication and of defects in two herpes simplex virus regulatory proteins on the transcription of these genes. We present evidence that the transcription of the alpha ICP4 gene is negatively regulated during a lytic infection. The regulation of ICP4 gene transcription requires the beta protein ICP8 (where ICP = infected cell polypeptide). Transcription of the beta ICP8, gamma 1 ICP5, and gamma 2 glycoprotein C (gC) genes was dependent on ICP4, and transcription of the gamma 2gC gene was strongly inhibited when DNA replication was blocked. Defects in ICP8 also resulted in increased levels of transcription of the ICP4, ICP8, ICP5, and gC genes from parental viral genomes. Our results suggest that ICP8 may be important in maintaining the highly ordered cascade of viral gene expression.

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These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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