Unusual priming mechanism of RNA-directed DNA synthesis in copia retrovirus-like particles of Drosophila.

Drosophila cells contain virus-like particles (VLPs) containing 5 kilobases (kb) of RNA (VLP H-RNA) homologous to the transposable element copia. The identity between VLP H-RNA and copia DNA has previously been confirmed at the nucleotide sequence level and reverse transcriptase activity is also detected in the VLPs. These results suggest that VLPs and copia are derivatives of viral particle and provirus forms, respectively, of the copia retrovirus-like particle. If the copia retrovirus-like particle replicates by a mechanism similar to the mechanism of vertebrate retroviral replication, a cellular transfer RNA would prime synthesis of the first DNA strand. We show that this is indeed so but that copia retrovirus-like particle has a novel type of priming mechanism; the first DNA extension does not start from the 3' end of a tRNA, but from an internal site (two nucleotides after the anticodon loop) of the Drosophila initiator methionine tRNA (tRNAMeti).