[False-positive reactions in laboratory diagnosis of Lassa, Marburg, and Ebola viral hemorrhagic fevers and AIDS].

Sera of normal subjects and AIDS patients living in Minsk and Odessa were tested for antibodies to hazardous viral infections Lassa, Marburg, and Ebola. Four to 16% of examinees were seropositive to Ebola virus, 0.8 to 2.

[Analysis of ribonucleoproteins of influenza virus containing genomic and complementary RNA].

The density and sedimentation characteristics of ribonucleoproteins (RNP) containing genomic RNA from influenza virus and RNA complementary have been studied. Radioactive RNA from infected cells has been used for analysis. RNA classes of interest were isolated by reannealing with abundant nonradioactive genomic and complementary RNA and separation of resulting duplexes in electrophoresis.

[Limitations in the translation of influenza virus mRNAs in infected cells].

The monolayer cultures of chicken embryonic cells were infected with influenza virus and 6 hrs after the infection the relative concentrations of viral mRNAs and the relative rates of virus-specific protein synthesis were determined. For this purpose the infected cells were incubated under conditions of continuous labelling of RNAs by the radioactive precursor; the mRNA fraction was obtained by hybridization of total RNA of infected cells with non-labelled RNA of viral particles and the individual mRNAs were fractionated by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis of RNA duplexes. The proteins from infected cells were labelled by [14C] amino acids for a short time and the individual virus-specific proteins were separated electrophoretically.

[Action of actinomycin and alpha-amanitin on the RNA transcription of the influenza virus].

Complete (template RNA) and incomplete (messenger RNA) transcripts were separated by electrophoretic fractionation of RNA-hybrids containing unlabeled genome RNA of influenza virus and virus-specific antigenome 3H-RNAs obtained from infected cells. Incubation of the infected cells in the presence of actinomycin D or alpha-amanitine was shown to inhibit selectively viral mRNA synthesis. It is suggested that the synthesis of mRNA and template antigenome RNA of influenza virus is initiated by different mechanisms.