Does the higher order structure of the influenza virus ribonucleoprotein guide sequence rearrangements in influenza viral RNA?

Abstract

Subgenomic RNAs (sgRNAs) were isolated from defective interfering virus produced by high multiplicity passage of the human influenza strain A/PR/8/34. Cloning and sequencing of 35 unique sgRNAs revealed that many were about 400 nucleotides long, containing about 200 nucleotides from each of the 5' and 3' ends of a full-length segment. Most of the sgRNAs were derived from segment 1, but there were examples from six other segments, including those encoding the haemagglutinin and neuraminidase. Our analysis of the sequence rearrangements found in sgRNAs indicates that they may be generated from the standard viral segments by a jumping viral polymerase that makes transitions between adjacent regions of the RNA template in the ribonucleoprotein tertiary structure.