Concatemers of alternating plus and minus strands are intermediates in adenovirus-associated virus DNA synthesis.

Replicating DNA molecules of adenovirus-associated virus (AAV) were selectively extracted from KB cells coinfected at 39.5 detrees with a DNA minus, temperature-sensitive mutant of adenovirus 5 (ts125) as helper. Under these conditions AAV DNA replication proceeds normally, but there is little, if any, adenovirus DNA synthesis. An analysis of the replicating molecules in sucrose density gradients reveals that there are AAV DNA intermediates which consist of covalently linked plus and minus DNA strands. Under denaturing conditions, these concatemers are linear single strands whose lengths can reach at least four times the size of the AAV genome. The most abundant concatemeric species is a dimer which presumably exists in vivo as a unit length hairpin. Unit length linear duplexes appear to be immediate precursors of plus and minus progeny strands. These findings are compatible with a self-priming mechanism for the synthesis of AAV DNA.