Disease relevance of SNORD54

• These sequences are located within 5 kilobase pairs of the ends of the segment, suggesting that U54 may be related to a genetically defined entity (gene block C; Davison and Taylor (1987) J. Gen Virol. 68, 36-48) issuing from a previous sequence comparison of the gamma-1 genome of Epstein-Barr virus and the alpha genome of varicella-zoster virus [1].

High impact information on SNORD54

• For tRNA, most base substitutions in the 7-base loop did not eliminate RUMT activity, except for any mutation of the methyl acceptor U54 and the C56G mutation [2].
• The Pyrodictium initiator tRNA sequence predicted from the gene sequence contained all of the nucleotide residues A1, A37, U54, A57, U60, and U72, in addition to three G-C base pairs in the anticodon stem region, which are characteristic of archaeal initiator tRNAs [3].
• The methylation of U54, which is completely buried in transfer ribonucleic acid, is administered by tRNA (m5 U54)-methyltransferase (RUMT) [4].
• Possible relation between the U54 segment of the CTHV genome and the conserved gene block C rearranged in alpha and gamma herpesvirus genomes [1].
• We have found nucleotide sequences in one of these segments, the U54 segment, whose putative translational products show clear similarity to two ubiquitous herpesvirus gene products, a single-stranded DNA binding protein and a protein of the helicase superfamily [1].

References