Roles of vaccinia virus ribonucleotide reductase and glutaredoxin in DNA precursor biosynthesis

To examine the possible role of the vaccinia virus glutaredoxin as a cofactor for viral ribonucleotide reductase, viral growth, DNA synthesis, and dNTP pools were measured in infections of B-SC-40 monkey kidney cells with wild type vaccinia virus and with mutants of vaccinia that lacked a functional reductase or glutaredoxin. In infections of untreated host cells, the lack of viral ribonucleotide reductase or glutaredoxin had only small effects upon virus growth. When host cells were pretreated with alpha-amanitin, which blocks host RNA polymerase II but not viral transcription, viral DNA synthesis was markedly reduced in infections with either of the mutants when compared with wild type infections. Relative to dNTP levels in wild type infections, pools of dCTP, but not of the other dNTPs, were significantly reduced in infections of amanitin-treated cells with either mutant. The parallel depletion of dCTP in the two mutant suggests that the role of glutaredoxin may be to function as a cofactor for viral ribonucleotide reductase. The data suggest that both viral proteins become essential for DNA replication only when levels of the corresponding host cell proteins are depleted.