Comparative studies of wild-type and cold-mutant (temperature-sensitive) influenza viruses: independent segregation of temperature-sensitivity of virus replication from temperature-sensitivity of virion transcriptase activity during recombination of mutant A/Ann Arbor/6/60 with wild-type H3N2 strains.

RNA 1 (see end of Summary) of a cold-adapted and temperature-sensitive (ts) influenza virus mutant A/Ann Arbor/6/60 has a different mobility from RNA 1 of wild-type (wt) A/Ann Arbor/6/60 when subjected to electrophoresis through acrylamide/agarose gels in the absence of denaturing agents. Detection of this lesion in RNA 1 of the mutant virus was dependent on the temperature of the gel during electrophoresis. Because RNA 1 is believed to code for a protein involved in virus-specific RNA synthesis we compared phenotypes of virion transcriptases in the wt and mutant viruses. The enzyme of the mutant virus was found to be about 40% less active at 40 degrees C than the enzyme of the wt virus when related to their activities at 31 degrees C. Two cold-adapted ts recombinants which derive their RNA 1 from the mutant A/Ann Arbor/6/60 have virion transcriptases with a phenotype similar to that of their mutant parent. Three different cold-adapted ts recombinants, however, which also derive their RNA 1 from the mutant A/Ann Arbor/6/60, have virion transcriptases with a phenotype similar to that of wt virus. We conclude, therefore, that the conditional-lethal ts property of A/Ann Arbor/6/60 mutant and its recombinants is independent of the phenotypic marker observed for the A/Ann Arbor/6/60 mutant virion transcriptase, and that the lesion in RNA 1 of the mutant may also be unrelated to the observed difference between virion transcriptases of the mutant and wt A/Ann Arbor/6/60 viruses. The phenotypes of the virion transcriptases in recombinants did, however, correlate with the derivation of their RNA 2. This suggests that the increased temperature-sensitivity of virion transcriptase of the A/Ann Arbor/6/60 mutant is caused by either (1) a lesion (not necessarily conditionally lethal) that occurred in its RNA 2 during the course of cold-adaptation, or (2) a lesion in another gene whose product is a component of the virion transcriptase complex, but which lesion is only expressed phenotypically when there is a synergistic interaction in the transcriptase complex with the product of A/Ann Arbor/6/60 rna 2.