Vesicular stomatitis virus RNA polymerase can read through the boundary between the leader and N genes in vitro

Triphosphorylated in vitro transcripts of vesicular stomatitis virus were selected by mercury-Sepharose chromatography using adenosine-5'-O-(3-thiotriphosphate) as an affinity probe. Numerous RNAs ranging from less than 47 up to several hundred nucleotides in length were detected. Some of these contain the leader RNA covalently linked to transcripts of the N gene. A comparison of the published genomic sequences at the estimated termination sites of several of these RNAs reveals some homology with the sequence present at both the end of the leader and polymerase genes.