Synthesis of complementary RNA sequences during productive adenovirus infection.

Liquid RNA.DNA hybridization with separated strands of adenovirus type 2 DNA revealed that late nuclear RNA can hybridize to about 85% of the 1-strand and 10-15% of the h-strand, whereas late cytoplasmic RNA hybridizes to 65-70% and 25% of the l- and h-strand, respectively. With separated strands from the six EcoRI fragments of adenovirus type 2 DNA as probes, it was shown that late nuclear RNA hydridizes to 85-90% of the l-strand from all six EcoRI fragments. Since late cytoplasmic RNA hybridizes to 40-50% of the h-strand from both fragments EcoRI-B and EcoRI-C, complementary viral RNA sequences are synthesized during adenovirus infection. Complementarity between nuclear and cytoplasmic RNA could also be demonstrated by showing that late cytoplasmic RNA which had been preincubated with late nuclear RNA hybridized to a smaller fraction of the h-strand of fragment EcoRI-C than without preincubation. Double-stranded RNA which contains sequences that correspond to at least 60% of the viral genome was isolated from infected cells. However, less than 2% of the newly synthesized late RNA became double-stranded after incubation under annealing conditions, which suggests that RNA derived from one of the strands is present at a low concentration. Accordingly, it was shown that nearly all viral cytoplasmic RNA which is synthesized late after infection is derived from the l-strand.