Re infectivity of naked viral DNA

[Lyle Najita]

>But you CAN inoculate cDNA clones of plant viruses (and I am sure, of
picornaviruses) into >susceptible hosts, and get production of native virus
- IF you have a suitable promoter that starts >transcription at or near the
5'-terminus of the viral RNA, and terminates at or just 3' of the normal 3'
>terminus.  With plant viruses, cDNA clones of viruses as big as
potyviruses (>10kb) have been >rendered infectious in this way.  So it is
not a dream or so unlikely for mammalian / animal systems; >all you need is
to get the DNA into a suitable cell, which (given the success of naked DNA
>vaccines) is not all that difficult. 
 
 
Actually, the original Nature paper that described initiation of poliovirus
replication from a cDNA clone was done from a pBR-type plasmid with no
eukaryotic promoter element. They got lucky and the vector provided a
reasonable facsimile. 
 
Lyle