Virus Specific Protein and a Ribonucleic Acid Associated with Ribosomes in Poliovirus Infected HeLa Cells

Excerpt

INTRODUCTION

In spite of the attention which biologists have devoted to the RNA containing viruses in the last 20 years, very little is known as yet about the mechanisms by which the information coded in the viral RNA on the one hand is translated into the structure of the virus specific protein, and on the other hand is replicated; and how these mechanisms operate within the framework of the host cell regulating systems.

Animal and bacterial viruses offer at present better model systems than plant viruses for such a type of study, because they can be grown in vitro under defined conditions.

In considering the autonomous capacity of replication of RNA viruses, the crucial problem is whether these viruses utilize for their reproduction a host enzymatic system or whether on the contrary virus replication depends, as is more probable, on new enzymes being synthesized as a result of the genetic...