Mechanism of the action of the inhibitor of reverse transcriptase.

An inhibitor of reverse transcriptase of Moloney leukemia virus was reported previously in the cytoplasm of the cultured cells (1). In this report, the mechanism of the inhibition was examined. The inhibitory activity was completely abrogated by treatment at 55 degrees C for 20 min. Destruction of the reaction products of reverse transcriptase was not observed. Strong inhibition was observed by preincubation of poly rA oligo dT used as a template-primer, together with the inhibitor, but was not by incubation of poly rA or oligo dT with the inhibitor separately. It is suggested that the inhibitor reacts with poly rA oligo dT complex and interferes with attachment of the reverse transcriptase to the template-primer complex.