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. 1971 Jan;68(1):182–186. doi: 10.1073/pnas.68.1.182

DNA Polymerase Activities in Virions of Visna Virus, a Causative Agent of a “Slow” Neurological Disease

J Schlom 1,*, D H Harter 1, A Burny 1, S Spiegelman 1
PMCID: PMC391191  PMID: 4993214

Abstract

The presence is reported of an RNA-instructed DNA polymerase in visna virus, the causative agent of a “slow” neurological disease in sheep. The product synthesized by the RNA-directed reaction has been shown to be a DNA heteropolymer by the following criteria: synthesis requires the presence of all four deoxyriboside triphosphates; the product is resistant to ribonuclease and alkali but is degraded by DNase; and the product has a density of 1.420 in Cs2SO4 solution, characteristic of DNA.

Visna virions, like those of the oncogenic RNA viruses, contain DNA polymerase activities that respond to a variety of double-stranded DNAs and to synthetic DNA·RNA hybrids.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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