REVERSE-TRANSCRIPTASE READS THROUGH A 2'-5'-LINKAGE AND A 2'-THIOPHOSPHATE IN A TEMPLATE

Avian myeloblastosis virus and Maloney murine leukemia Virus RNase H- reverse transcriptases pause when they encounter a 2'-5' linkage or a 2'-thiophosphate in their template RNAs, but eventually read through these backbone modifications, Both reverse transcriptases pause after the 2'-5' linkage but before the 2'-thiophosphate, These results suggest that in the absence of precise information concerning the behavior of a given reverse transcriptase with respect to a particular lesion or modification, caution should be exercised in the interpretation of primer extension data that is being used to determine the existence of, or map the position of, a crosslink, site of chemical modification or non-standard linkage in an RNA template.