Effect of substituting arabinonucleosides for deoxynucleotides in the DNA priming strand on the polymerase action of HIV-1 RT

The ability of 5'-DNA-araN-3' chimeras to serve as primers during HIV-1 RT- catalyzed DNA synthesis was assessed. It is shown that while the structural changes imparted by the arabinose units are minimal, the biological outcom e is significant. For example, a DNA strand with arabinocytidine (araC) at the 3'-terminus was found to serve as a primer of DNA synthesis but signifi cant pausing of HIV-RT was observed after the addition of 4 dNTP's. This ph enomenon was not observed for the analogous DNA primer containing a riboC u nit or an all-DNA strand.