Mice hyperimmunized with polyinosinic . polycytidylic acid complexed with methylated bovine serum albumin were protected against challenge with Friend leukemia virus. The virus was inoculated at the time when anti bodies reacting to the polynucleotide structure had reached an appreciable level. A sparing effect of approximately 1.5 logs in infectivity was afforded the immunized mice. Our result...

Nanoscale pores have potential to be used as biosensors and are an established tool for analysing the structure and composition of single DNA or RNA molecules. Recently, nanopores have been used to measure the binding of enzymes to their DNA substrates. In this technique, a polynucleotide bound to an enzyme is drawn into the nanopore by an applied voltage. The force exerted on the charged backb...

Polynucleotide phosphorylase, a 3' to 5' processive exoribonuclease is post-transcriptionally autocontrolled and it was previously shown that this control is dependent on a 5' processing by RNase III. In this paper, the mechanism of regulation is analyzed by studying the properties of a pnp-lacZ translational gene fusion. It is shown that this message is stable, even when processed by RNase III...

Three murine monoclonal anti-ssDNA autoantibodies have been produced by fusion of spleen cells from NZB/NZW F1 hybrid mice with Sp2/0-Ag 14 murine myeloma cells. Specificity studies characterizing monoclonal anti - ssDNA autoantibodies revealed binding patterns for nucleotides. Clone E-4-1 showed preferential binding with mono-di-and polyguanosine. Clones E-4-4 and E-11-1 specitically bound mon...

The role of ribonucleic acid (RNA) in deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) synthesis with the purified DNA polymerase from the avian myeloblastosis virus has been studied. The polymerase catalyzes the synthesis of DNA in the presence of four deoxynucleoside triphosphates, Mg(2+), and a variety of RNA templates including those isolated from avian myeloblastosis, Rous sarcoma, and Rauscher leukemia viruse...

A survey of our recent work on synthetic polynucleotide analogs is given. Propionic acid and 3-methyl butyric acid derivatives substituted in the 2-position with nucleic acid bases have been used as chiral pendants for attachment to hydrophilic polyamine backbones. Hindered rotation about the amide bonds formed promotes a base-stacked structure as shown by ultraviolet hypochromic effects versus...

1. Treatment of Micrococcus lysodeikticus polynucleotide phosphorylase (nucleoside diphosphate-polynucleotide nucleotidyltransferase) with trypsin causes a preferential loss of its cytidine diphosphate and uridine diphosphate polymerization activities. 2. The phosphorolytic activity of the enzyme towards polycytidylic acid is unaffected in conditions in which the cytidine diphosphate-polymeriza...

Hepatitis C virus NS3 helicase is an enzyme that unwinds double-stranded polynucleotides in an ATP-dependent reaction. It provides a promising target for small molecule therapeutic agents against hepatitis C. Design of such drugs requires a thorough understanding of the dynamical nature of the mechanochemical functioning of the helicase. Despite recent progress, the detailed mechanism of the co...

Ribonucleoside diphosphates react to form polyribonucleotides and inorganic phosphate. Studies of the nature of nucleotide incorporation into nucleic acid in Escherichia coli led to the recognition of a similar reaction by Littauer and Kornberg (3). Beers (4,5) and Olmsted (6,7) have investigated the phosphorylase in Micrococcus lysodeikticus. Heppel et al. (8-10) have elucidated the structure ...