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Journal of Virology, November 1999, p. 8926-8933, Vol. 73, No. 11
Division of Basic Sciences, Fred Hutchinson
Cancer Research Center, Seattle, Washington
98109,1 and Department of
Microbiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington
981952
Received 8 February 1999/Accepted 20 July 1999
Retroviruses preferentially package full-length genomic RNA over
spliced viral messages. For most retroviruses, this preference is
likely due to the absence of all or part of the packaging signal on
subgenomic RNAs. In avian leukosis-sarcoma virus, however, we have
shown that the minimal packaging signal, M
0022-538X/99/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1999, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
An M
-Containing Heterologous RNA, but Not
env mRNA, Is Efficiently Packaged into Avian
Retroviral Particles
, is located upstream of
the 5' splice site and therefore is present on both genomic and spliced
RNAs. We now show that an M
-containing heterologous RNA is packaged
only 2.6-fold less efficiently than genomic Rous sarcoma virus RNA.
Thus, few additional packaging sequences and/or structures exist
outside of M
. In contrast, we found that env mRNA is not efficiently
packaged. These results indicate that either M
is not functional on
this RNA or the RNA is somehow segregated from the packaging machinery.
Finally, deletion of sequences from the 3' end of M
was found to
reduce the packaging efficiency of heterologous RNAs.
*
Corresponding author. Mailing address: Division of
Basic Sciences, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, WA
98109-1024. Phone: (206) 667-4442. Fax: (206) 667-5939. E-mail:
mlinial{at}fred.fhcrc.org.
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