Ribonuclease H: a Ubiquitous Activity in Virions of Ribonucleic Acid Tumor Viruses |
| |
Authors: | Duane P. Grandgenett Gary F. Gerard Maurice Green |
| |
Affiliation: | 1Institute for Molecular Virology, Saint Louis University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri 63110 |
| |
Abstract: | Ten ribonucleic acid (RNA) tumor viruses grown in five different host cell species and three non-oncogenic viruses from three different virus groups have been examined for ribonuclease H content. Three different substrates were used to assay ribonuclease H: calf thymus [(3)H]RNA-deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) hybrid prepared with denatured calf thymus DNA and Escherichia coli DNA-directed RNA polymerase, (3)H-polydenylic acid [(3)H-poly(A)] complexed to polydeoxythymidylic acid [poly(dT)], and (3)H-polyuridylic acid [(3)H-poly(U)] complexed to polydeoxyadenylic acid [poly(dA)]. All ten RNA tumor viruses contained ribonuclease H activity which degraded the RNA of both the calf thymus hybrid and poly(A)-poly(dT), whereas only the ribonuclease H in the Moloney strain of murine sarcoma-leukemia virus and in RD-feline leukemia virus hydrolyzed the RNA strand of poly(U)-poly(dA). No appreciable ribonuclease H activity was detected in influenza, Sendai, or vesicular stomatitis virus. The ribonuclease H and RNA-directed DNA polymerase activities in Moloney murine sarcoma-leukemia virus were inseparable by phosphocellulose chromatography or glycerol gradient centrifugation, but appeared to be partially separated by diethylaminoethyl-cellulose chromatography. |
| |
Keywords: | |
|
|