The viral protein 3CD induces an equilibrium between the viral protein and RNA synthesis in a cell-free system for poliovirus replication.

In a cell-free system derived from uninfected HeLa cells and programmed with poliovirus RNA, an unbalance between the different replication steps is observed. After programming, the vRNA is exclusively used as a template for viral translation. It takes hours before there is a switch from protein synthesis to RNA replication. This is probably the reason for the inefficient production of infectious virus (compared to the synthesis in infected cells). If, however, the cell-free system is programmed with vRNA and with a mRNA coding for the viral protein 3CD, an increase in vRNA synthesis is found early post-programming, resulting in a better balance of protein synthesis and RNA synthesis and an increased virus yield of at least 2 log10. These data show that a balance between translation, RNA replication and packaging is required to allow efficient viral proliferation. The virus yield could be increased by a further log10 by the addition of pirodavir (a capsid stabiliser) and 10% of rabbit reticulocyte lysate to the cell-free system.