Noncytopathic mutants of Newcastle disease virus are defective in virus-specific RNA synthesis.

We have studied virus-specific RNA synthesis in cells infected by six noncytopathic (nc) mutants of the Australia-Victoria wild-type strain (AV-WT) of Newcastle disease virus (NDV) (19). The rates of NDV-specific RNA synthesis in mutant infection were three to sevenfold lower than those observed in wild-type infection. Velocity sedimentation of this NDV-specific RNA revealed that the lower rates of synthesis in mutant infection correlated with reduced accumulation of 18S and 35S mRNA. Electrophoresis in polyacrylamide-urea gels showed that accumulation of all of the 18S mRNA species was reduced and no new species could be detected. Primary transcription appeared unaltered in mutant infection. Cells infected with two naturally occurring avirulent strains of NDV also showed less accumulation of 18S mRNA. Electrophoresis of this RNA resulted in patterns which differed from those obtained with RNA from either AV-WT or nc mutant infection. Complementation for RNA accumulation between the nc mutants and RNA- temperature-sensitive mutants of AV-WT (32) suggested a common defect in the nc mutants. Analysis of plaque-forming revertants of five of the nc mutants revealed that viral RNA synthetic capacity, cell killing, and plaque-forming ability correlated absolutely. These results suggest that viral RNA synthesis and cytopathogenicity may be causally related. In addition, several of the plaque-forming (and cell-killing) revertants were found to be unable to induce fusion from within in infected cell cultures. This result, coupled with the finding that several of the nc mutants are capable of wild-type levels of fusion from within, suggests that the ability to cause such fusion does not correlate with the ability to kill cells.