Patent ID: 8674084
Filing Date: 2014-03-18
Classification: C12N

Abstract:
1. A gene expression construct comprising: (a) an expression enhancer sequence derived from the RNA-2 genome segment of a Comoviridae bipartite RNA virus, in which a target initiation site having the sequence AUG in the RNA-2 genome segment has been mutated, wherein the RNA2 genome segment of the Comoviridae virus encodes two carboxy coterminal proteins through two different translation initiation sites located in the same triplet reading frame, wherein the mutated target initiation site is the first of these two initiation sites and thus corresponds to the initiation site at position 161 in the wild-type RNA-2 segment of cowpea mosaic virus (CPMV) shown in SEQ ID NO: 1; and wherein the enhancer sequence has at least 90% identity to nucleotides 1 to 507 of the CPMV RNA-2 genome segment sequence shown in Table 1, and (b) a heterologous sequence for facilitating insertion of a gene encoding a protein of interest into the gene expression construct, wherein the heterologous sequence is located downstream of the mutated target initiation site in the enhancer sequence; and optionally (c) a 3′ UTR.