Assignment of wound tumor virus nonstructural polypeptides to cognate dsRNA genome segments by in vitro expression of tailored full-length cDNA clones.

Presumptive full-length cDNA clones of 9 of the 12 wound tumor virus double-stranded RNA genome segments were tailored for efficient in vitro expression by a recently described strategy [Z. Xu, J.V. Anzola, and D.L. Nuss (1987) DNA6, 505-513]. In vitro synthesized polypeptides specified by synthetic transcripts corresponding to the tailored cDNAs comigrated in polyacrylamide gels with in vivo synthesized viral-specific polypeptides. This analysis confirmed the functional integrity of the tailored cDNA clones and identified cognate genome segments which encode all five viral non-structural polypeptides as well as four structural polypeptides; two which comprise the capsid, one located in the viral core and one associated with the outer protein coat.