The presence of a cap structure at the 5′-end of barley stripe mosaic virus RNA

About 70% of the molecules in the total RNA preparation isolated from barley stripe mosaic virus (BSMV, Norwich strain) were capped, i.e., contained a 5′-terminal inverted 7-methylguanosine. At least two individual components of the genomic RNA (RNA 1 and RNA 3) were capped. Thus the RNA components of BSMV contain both a 3′-poly(A) sequence (A. A. Agranovsky et al., Virology 91, 95–105, 1978) and a 5′-terminal cap.