Selective decrease in the rate of cleavage of an intracellular precursor to Rauscher leukemia virus p30 by treatment of infected cells with actinomycin D.

The cleavage of an intracellular 67,000- to 70,000-dalton precursor, termed Pr4 to Rauscher leukemia virus (RLV) p30 protein proceeded at a slower rate when virus-producing cells were treated with actinomycin D (AMD). Treatment with AMD also caused a slight accumulation of Pr4 in purified early virus particles produced by a cell line which usually produces virions that contain little Pr4. The cleavage of other intracellular viral precursor polypeptides was not affected by treatment with AMD. Treatment of infected cells with cycloheximide, on the other hand, allowed the cleavage of Pr4 to proceed at the usual rate for a short period of time before further cleavage was drastically slowed or prevented. The cleavage of several other viral precursor polypeptides was also inhibited by treatment with cycloheximide. Different lines of evidence suggest that the mechanism of action of AMD is not due to a possible indirect effect on protein synthesis. Thus, the rate of cleavage of Pr4 was not affected by the length of pretreatment with AMD between 1 to 8 h. In addition, the combined effect of AMD and cycloheximide, at their maximal inhibitory concentrations, was greater than the effect of either drug alone, indicating the involvement of two at least partially different mechanisms in the action of AMD and cycloheximide. Furthermore, AMD did not affect the pulse labeling of viral precursor polypeptides. These results suggest that the interaction with viral RNA, whose production is inhibited by AMD, accelerates the cleavage of Pr4 to p30 during virus assembly. A hypothetical model is presented to illustrate th possible advantages of having a step in virus assembly in which genomic RNA interacts with a precursor to capsid proteins before the cleavage of that precursor.