RNA Synthesis in cells infected with herpes simplex virus

Experiments designed to test whether herpes simplex virus specifies its own arginine- or serine-specific transfer RNA in productively infected HEp-2‡ cells revealed the following. (i) Co-chromatography on reverse-phase Freon columns failed to show differences between the tRNA extracted from cytoplasm or polyribosomes of infected cells and charged with labeled arginine or serine by means of enzymes prepared from infected cells, and the corresponding aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase prepared from tRNA and enzymes extracted from uninfected cells. (ii) Purified 4 s RNA prepared from extracts of infected cells hybridized with herpes simplex virus DNA. However, the RNA extracted from nuclei of infected cells and excluded from Sephadex G100 (i.e. ⪖50,000 daltons in molecular weight) precluded the hybridization of 4 s RNA with viral DNA in hybridization competition tests. (iii) Arginine-specific tRNA and serine-specific tRNA extracted from infected cells and purified by the method of Gillam, Blew, Warrington, von Tigerstrom & Tener (1968) failed to hybridize with viral DNA. The experiments indicate that herpes simplex virus does not specify, in HEp-2 cells, amounts of these RNA species detectable by the procedures used in these studies. We have not excluded the possibility that the virus specifies tRNA specific for derivatives of arginine or serine.