Figure 3

Schematic representation of the HAV construct containing the EMCV IRES at the 5'NTR of the HAV genome. A 606-nt cDNA fragment containing the EMCV IRES was inserted into the HAV 5'NTR between the HAV IRES and the initiation codon (ATG) of the HAV polyprotein. The resulting construct was termed pHAV-IRES, and contained a short synthetic polylinker containing KpnI, SnaBI, SacII, EcoRI, and AciI restriction sites followed by nts 278-836 of the EMCV IRES (dashed rectangle) inserted into the XbaI site in VP4 in such a way as to recreate the native initiation codon of the HAV polyprotein. The mature HAV proteins and the viral poly (A) tail (AAA) are indicated in the schematic representation of the HAV genome organization.