Vesicular stomatitis virus: mode of transcription.

Recent studies on the mechanism by which the virion-associated RNA polymerase of vesicular stomatitis virus transcribes RNA have revealed several new biological features of general interest. The mode of synthesis of the 5'-terminal cap structure of the mRNAs, the sequential transcription of the genes and the presence of a transcribed "leader" RNA segment are properties which are either not shown by other viruses, or have not yet been described. These features are probably inter-related with the primary transcription process, which itself may be a useful model for future studies on mRNA biosynthesis in eukaryotic systems.