Repost re: infectivity of RNA/DNA

[Patrick O'Neil]

On 22 May 1995, ncel wrote:

[...]
> 	You are also correct that secondary structure affects 
> susceptibility to RNasess, but even viroids with their highly stable 
> secondary structure are inactivated by RNase A (even when incubated in their 
> native, highly base-paired, conformation). 
>

The fact that viroids are susceptable would be something I would, 
offhand, hypothesize is due to the fact that there are short regions of 
non-base pairing due to mismatching sequences.  The viroid EMs I have 
seen demonstrate a number of short unpaired regions which would likely 
have high susceptibility to RNase.

Patrick