Transcription of host-substituted simian virus 40 DNA in whole cells and extracts

Viral transcriptional complexes were extracted from the nuclei of monkey kidney cells infected with wild-type simian virus 40 (SV40) or a variant strain containing a high proportion of host-substituted DNA molecules. The RNAs synthesized by these complexes in an in vitro system were analyzed for their content of SV40 and host sequences by a technique of sequential hybridization to plaque-purified and substituted viral DNAs. The relative labeling of the two types of sequences was commensurate with their proportion in the viral DNA (about 20% host). The substituted virus contains both reiterated and unique types of cellular sequences, and both kinds appeared to be transcribed. Transcripts of the substituted sequences formed a much smaller proportion of the virus related RNA recovered from intact infected cells, suggesting that host sequence transcripts are synthesized but rapidly degraded in the whole cell. The alternative, that transcription of these sequences is artificially enhanced in the in vitro system, cannot be rigorously excluded. We compared the self-annealing of viral RNAs from nuclear extracts of cells infected with wild-type and substituted viruses; transcripts labeled both in vivo and in vitro showed a two- to threefold-higher level of self-annealing in the case of the variant than in the case of wild type SV40.