Rockefeller University Digital Commons @ RU Harvey Society Lectures 1976 David Baltimore, 1975 The Rockefeller University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.rockefeller.edu/harvey-lectures Recommended Citation The Rockefeller University, "David Baltimore, 1975" (1976). Harvey Society Lectures. 51. https://digitalcommons.rockefeller.edu/harvey-lectures/51 This Book is brought to you for free and open access by Digital Commons @ RU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Harvey Society Lectures by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ RU. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. THE STRATEGY OF RNA VIRUSES* DAVID BALTIMORE Department of Biology and Center for Cancer Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts I. INTRODUCTION N this presentation I shall contrast three types of animal viruses that I in their extracellular state appear very similar, but as replicating viruses are very different.The three types of viruses are: picornaviruses, typified by poliovirus; rhabdoviruses, typified by vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV), and RNA tumor viruses. The virions of all three of these viruses contain a single strand of RNA which is 2.5 to_ 4 X 106 daltons in length (on the order of 10 kilobases). While these viruses _might appear superficially similar because of the similarity of their genome structure, there are enormous differences in the modes of nucleic acid synthesis used by the viruses, the organiza tion of their messenger RNA (mRNA), the types of polymerases in volved in replicating them, and the way in which they utilize the hospitality of the host cell. Although many experimental observations have contributed to our understanding of these viruses, generally a single experiment provided the clue that signaled the unique features of a given virus.