RNA SPLICING CONTRIBUTES TO THE GENERATION OF MATURE MESSENGER-RNAS OF BORNA-DISEASE VIRUS, A NONSEGMENTED NEGATIVE STRAND RNA VIRUS

We recently demonstrated that Borna disease virus (BDV) has a negative non-segmented single stranded (NNS) RNA genome, whose organization is similar to that of other members of the Mononegavirales order. Howeve r, we have also documented that in contrast to the rest of the NNS-RNA animal viruses, BDV replication and transcription occur in the nucleu s of infected cells. Here, we provide evidence that BDV uses the host nuclear splicing machinery to generate some of the viral mRNAs, repres enting the first documentation of RNA splicing in NNS-RNA animal virus es. Possible implications of RNA splicing for the regulation of BDV ge ne expression are discussed.