Synthesis of infectious poliovirus RNA by purified T7 RNA polymerase

Plasmids containing the entire cDNA sequence of poliovirus type 1 (Mahoney strain) under control of a promoter for T7 RNA polymerase have been constructed. Purified T7 RNA polymerase efficiently transcribes the entire poliovirus cDNA in either direction to produce full-length poliovirus RNA [(+)RNA] or its complement [(-)RNA]. The (+)RNA produced initially had 60 nucleotides on the 5' side of the poliovirus RNA sequence, including a string of 18 consecutive guanine residues generated in the original cloning and an additional 626 nucleotides of pBR322 sequence beyond the poly(A) tract at the 3' end. Such RNA, while much more infectious than the plasmid DNA, is only about 0.1% as infectious as RNA isolated from the virus. Subsequently, a T7 promoter was placed only 2 base pairs ahead of the poliovirus sequence, so that T7 RNA polymerase synthesizes poliovirus RNA with only 2 additional guanine residues at the 5' end and no more than seven nucleotides past the poly(A) tract at the 3' end. Such RNA has much higher specific infectivity, about 5% that of RNA isolated from the virus. The ability to make infectious poliovirus RNA efficiently from cloned DNA makes it possible to apply techniques of in vitro mutagenesis to the analysis of poliovirus functions and the construction of novel and perhaps useful derivatives of poliovirus. A source of variant RNAs should also allow detailed study of the synthesis and processing of poliovirus proteins in vitro.