Date of Award

Spring 2025

Language

English

Embargo Period

5-1-2025

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

College/School/Department

Department of Biological Sciences

Program

Biology

First Advisor

Cara Pager

Committee Members

Andy Berglund​, Alan Chen​, Gaby Fuchs,​ Joanna Sztuba-Solinska​

Keywords

Zika virus, gene expression, 3'UTR

Subject Categories

Molecular Biology

Abstract

Following its discovery in 1947, Zika virus garnered little attention in the global stage until a rapidly spreading epidemic brough the virus to the global stage in 2015. Continuous advances in research have begun to further the understanding of the molecular biology of Zika virus, however much is still unknown. Much of our understanding of the virus comes from cross reference to other viruses within the same family, such as Dengue virus and West Nile virus. A commonality of these viruses is that they resemble cellular mRNAs and have a single-stranded positive-sense RNA genome that contains a 5’-cap but lacks a poly(A) tail in the highly structured 3’ untranslated region. Examination of these 3’untranslated regions revealed that they contain a number of A-rich regions which are localized to RNA structures. Despite both the A-rich regions and the structures being highly conserved, they remain unstudied.

To address this gap in knowledge, I chose three of the conserved A-rich regions and used well described reporter constructs to examine effects on the viral life cycle. I focused specifically on the production of infectious virus, translation, and replication. In my work I provide the first evidence of these A-rich regions having a functional role by identifying 3’UTR regions critical to the production of infectious virus. I further link these regions to roles in translation and potential modulation of host switching. Additionally, my research is the first to identify interactions between the Zika virus 3’UTR and the 18S component of the 40S ribosome.

License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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