Regulation of herpesvirus macromolecular synthesis: temporal order of transcription of alpha genes is not dependent on the stringency of inhibition of protein synthesis.

Operationally, alpha genes of herpes simplex virus 1 were defined on the basis of the observations that they are the earliest genes expressed in the infected cell and that the transcription, processing, accumulation of the mRNA's in the infected cell cytoplasm can take place in the presence of inhibitors of protein synthesis, such as cycloheximide. In these studies, we translated in vitro the viral mRNA's extracted from cells infected maintained in the presence of cycloheximide, emetine, or anisomycin. Inasmuch as all the major alpha proteins (no. 0, 4, 22, and 27) were translated, we conclude that the transcription of all previously defined alpha genes is independent of the stringency of inhibition of protein synthesis and that pre-alpha genes cannot be detected in such experiments.