Open AccessTranslation of infectious bronchitis virus RNA
Author(s) -
Highfield P.E.,
Morser J.,
Lomniczi B.,
Stephenson J.R.
Publication year - 1978
Publication title -
fems microbiology letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.899
H-Index - 151
eISSN - 1574-6968
pISSN - 0378-1097
DOI - 10.1111/j.1574-6968.1978.tb01922.x
Subject(s) - virology , translation (biology) , infectious bronchitis virus , avian infectious bronchitis virus , bronchitis , rna , virus , microbiology and biotechnology , biology , covid-19 , medicine , infectious disease (medical specialty) , messenger rna , genetics , pathology , gene , disease
Infectious Bronchitis Virus (IBV) is a singlestranded RNA virus belonging to the coronavirus group. Although these viruses are important causative agents of animal and human diseases, their molecular biology is relatively unknown [ 1 ]. Recently several reports have appeared on the molecular weight and biological properties of coronavirus RNA. The molecular weight of a human coronavirus OC-43 was reported to be 6.1 • 1 0 6 [ 2 ] while that of IBV was 5.6 • 1 0 6 [ 3 ] . More recently, it was reported that IBV RNA is a single polynucleotide chain with a molecular weight of 8 • 1 0 6 daltons [4]. However, a major unresolved question is whether the coronaviruses are negative or positive strand viruses. A recent demonstration that the IBV RNA was infectious and polyadenylated [3-5 ] shows that it is a positive stranded virus. If so, then it should be translatable in a cell-free protein synthesizing system to yield virus polypeptides. This paper demonstrates that the RNA can indeed be translated in two different in vitro protein synthesizing systems into characterisable products.