Reverse transcriptases

[Karl Fischer]

In article <3q33km$361 at hermod.uio.no>, ohungnes at bioslave.uio.no (Olav
Hungnes) wrote:


> I think one should keep in mind that the other side of the retrovirus
> replication cycle, transcription from proviral DNA by host cell
> RNA polymerase II, is probably also error-prone. The retrovirus
> has little to gain from evolving an RT with significant higher 
> fidelity than the RNA poly. Last time I read about this there was little 
> documentation on the fidelity of RNA polymerases. Anyone have info on 
> this? 

Olav,

The only report in the literature I've seen which addresses fidelity of
cellular RNA polymerase II is "Accuracy of wheat-germ RNA polymerase II"
by Mercoyrol, Corda, Job and Job in European Journal of Biochemistry (206
p. 49-58, 1992). Their in vitro experiments demonstrated an error
frequency of 1 in 250 to less than 1 in 2X10^5 , depending on the template
sequence and the choice of divalent cation. Anyone have anything more
recent than this?

Cheers

Karl

-- 
Karl Fischer
kfischer at gpu.srv.ualberta.ca
tyr-2 at bones.biochem.ualberta.ca