Ultraviolet Inactivation of Moloney Leukaemia Virus: Relative Target Size Required for Virus Replication and Rescue of 'Defective' Murine Sarcoma Virus

Abstract

Murine leukaemia virus (MuLV) exhibits two kinds of interaction with mouse cells transformed by murine sarcoma virus (MSV) in vitro (Bassin, Tuttle & Fischinger, 1970): an apparent cytocidal interaction accompanied by virus replication and the rescue of infectious MSV. It is not known whether the entire virus genome of MuLV is necessary for these interactions, as has been previously observed in the avian sarcoma-leukaemia system (Levinson & Rubin, 1966). In order to measure the relative target sizes of the genetic information responsible, we studied the kinetics of u.v. inactivation of both the replicating ability of MuLV and the ability of this virus to rescue MSV.