[Limitations in the translation of influenza virus mRNAs in infected cells].

The monolayer cultures of chicken embryonic cells were infected with influenza virus and 6 hrs after the infection the relative concentrations of viral mRNAs and the relative rates of virus-specific protein synthesis were determined. For this purpose the infected cells were incubated under conditions of continuous labelling of RNAs by the radioactive precursor; the mRNA fraction was obtained by hybridization of total RNA of infected cells with non-labelled RNA of viral particles and the individual mRNAs were fractionated by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis of RNA duplexes. The proteins from infected cells were labelled by [14C] amino acids for a short time and the individual virus-specific proteins were separated electrophoretically. There was no correlation between the rates of virus-specific protein synthesis and the relative concentrations of corresponding mRNAs. This indicates the regulation of virus-specific protein synthesis at the post-translational level.