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Structure of the RNA inside the vesicular stomatitis virus nucleocapsid

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 February 2000

FRÉDÉRIC ISENI
Affiliation:
European Molecular Biology Laboratory Grenoble Outstation, Grenoble Cedex 9, France
FLORENCE BAUDIN
Affiliation:
European Molecular Biology Laboratory Grenoble Outstation, Grenoble Cedex 9, France
DANIELLE BLONDEL
Affiliation:
Laboratoire de Génétique des Virus, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 91198 Gif-sur-Yvette cedex, France
ROB W.H. RUIGROK
Affiliation:
European Molecular Biology Laboratory Grenoble Outstation, Grenoble Cedex 9, France
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Abstract

The structure of the viral RNA (vRNA) inside intact nucleocapsids of vesicular stomatitis virus was studied by chemical probing experiments. Most of the Watson–Crick positions of the nucleotide bases of vRNA in intact virus and in nucleoprotein (N)-RNA template were accessible to the chemical probes and the phosphates were protected. This suggests that the nucleoprotein binds to the sugar–phosphate backbone of the RNA and leaves the Watson–Crick positions free for the transcription and replication activities of the viral RNA-dependent RNA polymerase. The same architecture has been proposed for the influenza virus nucleocapsids. However, about 5% of the nucleotide bases were found to be relatively nonreactive towards the chemical probes and some bases were hyperreactive. The pattern of reactivities was the same for RNA inside virus and for RNA in N-RNA template that was purified over a CsCl gradient and which had more than 94% of the polymerase and phosphoprotein molecules removed. All reactivities were more or less equal on naked vRNA. This suggests that the variations in reactivity towards the chemical probes are caused by the presence of the nucleoprotein.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
2000 RNA Society

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