This dissertation is based on my first doctoral research. For that, I developed an in vitro system in which I could use a section of the RNA template of human hepatitis delta virus and achieve the initial phases of a replication of the RNA template into an RNA copy.
I achieved this by fractionating human nuclear extract in the classical method followed for transcription by RNA polymerase II/ The result was that , besides the RNA template and RNA polymerase II, I needed some co-factors (e.g. PC4) known to act at the initiation phase of nuclear RNA transcription. However, my model was that this RNA virus "tricked" RNA polymerase II into copying tis genome by mimicking the structure of a paused transcription elongation complex, and I suggested that PC4 may be involved at this other phase of the canonical transcription reaction.
This reasearch has profound implications, namely that RNA polymerase II may be involved in other RNA-templated reactions besides transcription.
