High spontaneous mutation rate of Rous sarcoma virus demonstrated by direct sequencing of the RNA genome.

Direct and extensive sequencing of RSV RNA genome is reported. More than 10,000 nt of the T1 RNase resistant RSV RNA fragments (1) have been sequenced and shown to cover 3900 nt of RSV genome. The frequent sequence variations found indicate that RSV supports a very high incidence of spontaneous mutations in the course of replication, one very probable cause of the genetic diversity among the avian retroviruses. Sequences of the structured RSV RNAs allowed us also to precisely characterize the structured domains of the retroviral genome and show that the src gene is not structured.