Photoreactivation of a cytoplasmic virus

Ultraviolet light-inactivated frog virus 3 is efficiently photoreactivated by chick embryo cells. A cellular enzyme is presumably responsible for this repair of viral deoxyribonucleic acid, for the phenomenon is insensitive to an inhibitor of protein synthesis and is not seen in mammalian cells that are known to lack photoreactivating enzyme. Since frog virus 3 is a cytoplasmic virus, functionally significant amounts of photoreactivating enzyme are probably present in the cytoplasm of chick embryo cells.