Reovirus RNA is Infectious

Conditions under which reovirus RNA is infectious have been worked out. In brief, single-stranded (plus-stranded, ss) and/or double-stranded (ds) RNA of reovirus serotype 3 (ST3 virus) is lipofected into L929 mouse fibroblasts together with a rabbit reticulocyte lysate in which ss or melted dsRNA has been translated. After 8 hr the cells are then infected with a helper virus, ST2 reovirus. Virus yields are harvested 24 or 48 hr later. Under these conditions virus that forms plaques by 5 days is produced, all of which is ST3 virus; ST2 virus forms plaques only after 12 days. No reassortants are present among the progeny. The virus yields are about 0.2 PFU/cell; immunofluorescence assays show that this progeny is derived from about 4% of the cells. Double-stranded RNA is 20 times as infectious as ssRNA; ds and ssRNA together yield 10 times as much infectious virus as dsRNA alone, the reason being that dsRNA greatly increases the infectiousness of ssRNA. All species of both ss and dsRNA are required for the operation of this additive effect. The primed rabbit reticulocyte lysate is not essential, but increases virus yields by 100-fold. Its activity is proportional to the time for which translation has proceeded; however, this activity is not due solely to newly synthesized proteins because destruction of the RNA following translation abolishes activity which cannot be restored by simple addition of more RNA. Translation of all species of RNA is essential. Whereas no reassortants are formed when ss and dsRNA of different genotypes are lipofected together, mixtures of dsRNAs of different genotypes do yield reassortants. The same is true for such mixtures of ssRNA. These findings will permit the introduction of new or altered genome segments into the reovirus genome. They open the way to the identification of encapsidation and assortment signals on reovirus genome segments, the characterization of functional domains on reovirus proteins, and the development of reovirus as an expression vector.