Structure of a replication intermediate in the synthesis of Rous sarcoma virus DNA in vivo.

Intermediates in the synthesis of Rous sarcoma virus DNA in vivo contain a short second strand of DNA (plus strong-stop DNA) synthesized by using the region near the 5' end of the first (minus) strand of DNA as the template. In this report, we show that the 3' end of plus strong-stop DNA is extended about 15 to 20 nucleotides beyond the 5' end of the minus-strand DNA template, probably copying a portion of the tRNATrp molecule that serves as primer for synthesis of the minus strand of DNA. The extra sequences present in plus strong-stop DNA may play a central role in the generation of the long terminal repeat present in mature forms of viral DNA.