The Hepatitis B virus PRE stem-loop alpha (HBV PRE SL alpha) is an RNA structure that is shown to play a role in nuclear export of HBV mRNAs.
HBV PREalpha consists of a 30 nt stem-loop, with a 5 nt apical loop. The conserved stem-loop was predicted within the HBV PRE sequence and confirmed by mutagenesis .[ 1] [ 2] [ 3]
The exact role of this structure in nuclear export has not yet been determined.[ 4]
^ Smith Gj, 3rd; Donello, JE; Lück, R; Steger, G; Hope, TJ (1998). "The hepatitis B virus post-transcriptional regulatory element contains two conserved RNA stem-loops which are required for function" . Nucleic Acids Research . 26 (21): 4818–4827. doi :10.1093/nar/26.21.4818 . PMC 147918 . PMID 9776740 . {{cite journal }}
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^ Schwalbe, M; Ohlenschläger, O; Marchanka, A; Ramachandran, R; Häfner, S; Heise, T; Görlach, M (March 2008). "Solution structure of stem-loop alpha of the hepatitis B virus post-transcriptional regulatory element" . Nucleic Acids Research . 36 (5): 1681–1689. doi :10.1093/nar/gkn006 . PMC 2275152 . PMID 18263618 .
^ Lim, CS; Brown, CM (September 2016). "Hepatitis B virus nuclear export elements: RNA stem-loop α and β, key parts of the HBV post-transcriptional regulatory element" . RNA Biology . 13 (9): 743–747. doi :10.1080/15476286.2016.1166330 . PMC 5013995 . PMID 27031749 .
^ Chen, A; Panjaworayan T-Thienprasert, N; Brown, CM (7 July 2014). "Prospects for inhibiting the post-transcriptional regulation of gene expression in hepatitis B virus" . World Journal of Gastroenterology . 20 (25): 7993–8004. doi :10.3748/wjg.v20.i25.7993 . PMC 4081668 . PMID 25009369 .