Ribonuclease activity is associated with subviral particles isolated from interferon-treated vesicular stomatitis virus-infected cells.

Previously we have shown that inhibition of replication of vesicular stomatitis virus in interferon-treated JLSV-11 cells is at least partly caused by impaired viral primary transcription. Here we report that subviral particles isolated from interferon-treated infected cells were deficient in mRNA synthesis in vitro compared with the particles isolated from untreated cells. This was due to the presence of an associated ribonuclease activity which hydrolyzed not only newly synthesized viral mRNAs but also exogenously added viral transcripts.