Figure 1.

BVP releases γ-phosphate from triphosphate-terminated RNA. [γ-³²P]ATP-terminated trinucleotide RNA was incubated for 30 min at 30°C either with buffer (lane 1), the indicated amounts of wild-type BVP (lanes 2–4), or mutant BVP(C119S) (lanes 5–7). The reaction mixture was analyzed by TLC on PEI–cellulose plates. The position of the ³²P label is designated by the asterisk. The position of phosphate was determined by treating the substrate with CIP (data not shown). Occasionally, some fluctuation in the background of free phosphate (lane 7) was observed; this was not due to the BVP protein.