The effect of infection with adenovirus 2 on the transcription of cellular RNA

The synthesis of cell-specific RNA in exponentially grown KB cells infected with human adenovirus 2 was studied by DNA-RNA hybridization and hybridization-inhibition. The fraction of pulse-labeled RNA (30 min with 3H-uridine) in the nucleus (nRNA) which hybridized to cellular DNA decreased with time after infection while that in the cytoplasm (cRNA) increased. Polyribosomes of 18 hr-infected cells had twice the content of cell-specific RNA as polyribosomes of uninfected cells. Polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis of pulse labeled cRNA revealed a fraction of RNA in the cytoplasm which hybridized with increasing efficiency to cellular DNA as infection progressed. Hybridization-inhibition did not detect qualitative differences between cell-specific RNA sequences isolated from unfractionated infected and uninfected cells. Hybridization-inhibition using cytoplasmic RNA (cRNA) or cRNA with added nuclear RNA (nRNA) indicate that some cellular RNA species transcribed from reiterated DNA sequences largely restricted to the nucleus of uninfected cells enter the cytoplasm at an increasing rate after infection with adenovirus 2.