Synthesis of mixed ribo/deoxyribopolynucleotides by mutant T7 RNA polymerase.

Mutant form of T7 RNA polymerase able to use both rNTP and dNTP as substrat es was studied. A number of different T7 promoter-containing templates were tested for the synthesis of dNTP-containing RNA-like polynucleotides (dcRN As). The initiation stage was shown to be the most critical in the dNTP's i ncorporation into the product. The dcRNAs obtained were tested as templates for HIV-1 reverse transcriptase (RT) and appear to be the effective in RT- catalyzed reaction.