Genetics of reovirus: the relationship of interference to complementation and reassortment of temperature-sensitive mutants at nonpermissive temperature.

Temperature-sensitive mutants of reovirus type 3 are capable of interfering with the replication of wild-type reovirus type 3. The interfering activity correlated with the ability of pairs of mutants to complement at 39°: Pairs of noninterfering mutants (tsD × tsE) yielded efficient complementation (indexes of 10–50); pairs of interfering mutants (including members of groups ts A, B, G) did not produce significant complementation (indexes ～ 1). The ability of pairs of mutants to reassort at 39° generally followed a similar pattern. Thus interference is an important property of ts mutants of reovirus and needs to be considered when genetic interactions are being studied at 39°.