Abstract
Upon infection, the Newcastle disease virus (NDV) genome is transcribed to produce 18S, 22S and 35S RNA. The 22S RNA was shown to contain 18S sequences and is thought to represent polycistronic transcripts generated by transcriptional readthrough of adjacent genes. With improved extraction procedures, the 22S RNA was found to represent up to 25% of the total transcription in NDV-infected Chinese hamster ovary cells. This RNA was resolved into at least 5 discrete species on formaldehyde-agarose gels. All but 1 of these molecules contain 3'' polyadenylate sequences but not internal polyadenylate sequences. These transcripts are found on polyribosomes of infected cells, suggesting that they are functional mRNA.