Influenza virion RNA-dependent RNA polymerase: stimulation by guanosine and related compounds

The activity of RNA-dependent RNA polymerase of several influenza viruses is stimulated by guanosine. Depending upon the virus strain used, the stimulation of initial reaction rate is up to 10-fold. 5'-GMP, 3',5'-cyclic GMP, and 5'-GDP show lesser stimulation effects. No other nucleosides of 5'-NMPs stimulate, but the dinucleoside monophosphates GpG and GpC show large stimulations. We present evidence that the stimulation represents preferential initiation of genome complementary RNA chains with guanosine: (i) [3-H] guanosine is incorporated specifically at the 5'terminus of RNA in polymerase reaction mixes in vitro. (ii) This incorporation reaction has several properties similar to those of the virion polymerase elongation reaction. (iii) RNA made in the stimulated reaction behaves as complementary RNA in annealing kinetic studies, as does RNA labeled with [3-H]guanosine.