V. Srividhya et Hs. Savithri, INTERACTIONS OF 3'-TERMINAL AND 5'-TERMINAL REGIONS OF PHYSALIS MOTTLE VIRUS GENOMIC RNA WITH ITS REPLICATION COMPLEX, Journal of Biosciences, 21(6), 1996, pp. 743-753
Physalis mottle virus (PhMV) belongs to the tymogroup of positive-stra
nd RNA viruses with a genome size of 6 kb. Crude membrane preparations
from PhMV-infected Nicotiana glutinosa plants catalyzed the synthesis
of PhMV genomic RNA from endogenously bound template. Addition of exo
genous genomic RNA enhanced the synthesis which was specifically inhib
ited by the addition of sense and antisense transcripts corresponding
to 3' terminal 242 nucleotides as well as the 5' terminal 458 nucleoti
des of PhMV genomic RNA while yeast tRNA or ribosomal RNA failed to in
hibit the synthesis. This specific inhibition suggested that the 5' an
d 3' non-coding regions of PhMV RNA might play an important role in vi
ral replication.