Characterization of RNA from noninfectious virions produced by sarcoma positive-leukemia negative transformed 3T3 cells.

RNA from noninfectious virions produced by two established clonal lines of sarcoma positive-leukemia negative (S+L-)-transformed 3T3 cells has been characterized. RNA from virions or nucleoids of S+L--(C243) cells consisted of three to four sizes: +/-44 S (6%), 28 S (17%), 18 S (38%), and <18 S (39%). 28S virion RNA contained some virus-specific information demonstrable by RNA.DNA hybridization with a DNA probe derived from the RNA-directed DNA polymerase product of murine sarcoma-leukemia virus, while parallel studies indicated that 28S ribosomal RNA from ribosomal subunits of transformed and nontransformed 3T3 cells did not contain virus-specific information. In contrast to the S+L-(C243) virions, RNA from virions or nucleoids of S+L-(D56) cells consisted of five sizes: 80 S (6%), 68 S (8%), 56 S (5%), 28 S (28%), and <28 S (53%). Thermal dissociation studies suggested that this S+L- genome is comprised of 28S RNA subunits. From these studies we postulate that the 28S viral RNA is most probably the monomeric genome of S+L- virions.