Genome homology of vesicular stomatitis virus and defective T particles and evidence for the sequential transcription of the virion ribonucleic acid.

The small defective T particle of vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV-111) has no detectable enzyme activity when assayed at 31 C, although qualitatively it possesses all the virion proteins found in complete VSV-1 virions. With VSV-1 transcription product ribonucleic acid (RNA), it is shown that the VSV-111 RNA is identical to part of the VSV-1 genome. Evidence is also presented to support the idea that in vitro VSV-1 transcription is sequential.