Processing of adenovirus specific nuclear RNA during virus replication

Abstract

Adenovirus 2-specific RNA in the nucleus of infected cells sediments as rapidly as 80–100S (MW ca. 12 × 10 6 daltons) and may represent a complete transcript of the adenovirus 2 genome. These large adenovirus nuclear RNA molecules may be processed into much smaller polysomal viral mRNA molecules (MW 1–2 × 10 6 daltons) because both classes of RNA contain poly(A) and because competition hybridization experiments indicate that all the viral-specific mRNA sequences are present in large nuclear RNA. However, not all the large adenovirus-specific nuclear RNA is processed into mRNA since only 70–75% of the viral nuclear RNA sequences are found in the cytoplasm both early and late after infection. It appears that the generation of adenovirus-specific mRNA in infected cells occurs through the processing of large viral nuclear RNA molecules containing poly(A) in a manner similar to that suggested for the production of mRNA in uninfected cells (Darnell et al., 1971b).