Size, subunit composition, and secondary structure of the Friend virus genome

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Abstract
EM and gel electrophoresis studies show that the high-MW (50-70S) RNA extracted from Friend virus (FV) is a dimer with the same basic structure previously observed for the RNA from RD-114 virus, baboon virus and woolly monkey virus. This observation greatly strengthens the inference that the dimer structure is a general characteristic of the RNA of all mammalian type C viruses. The FV dimer is slightly less stable than the RNA dimer of woolly monkey virus, which is much less stable than those of RD-114 and baboon virus. There are 3 FV monomer components, small (S), medium (M) and large (L), with molecular lengths of 6.7 .+-. 0.6, 7.7 .+-. 0.6 and 9.5 .+-. 0.6 kilobases, respectively. There are approximately equal amounts of the S and M components and much less of the L component. Most of the dimers are homodimers (SS, MM and LL). The frequency of heterodimers (SM, SL, ML) is much less than expected for a random assortment model.