FIG 5.

RdRp mutators have higher recombination rates than wild-type virus. (A) Schematic of the recombination experiment: BHK-21 cells were cotransfected with an equal amount of replicon RNA and helper RNA. Titer was assessed by plaque assay. (B) BHK-21 cells were cotransfected with SINV-helper and with replicon-WT or replicon-G. At 16, 24, and 48 h posttransfection, progeny viruses arising from recombination were quantified by plaque assay. Mean values and standard errors of the means are shown (n = 3; ***, P < 0.001, by a two-tailed student t test). (C) BHK-21 cells were infected with progeny collected from the recombination experiment presented in panel B and probed by Northern blotting using a probe able to recognize full-length, replicon, and helper genomes.