Inhibition of vaccinia virus thymidine kinase by the distal products of its own metabolic pathway.

Vaccinia virus thymidine kinase activity is inhibited by low concentrations (10 microM) of dTDP or dTTP, but not by dTMP. This inhibition is specified for the thymidine nucleotides as dATP, dGTP, and dCTP have no effect. The viral enzyme phosphorylates thymidine to dTMP with typical first-order kinetics. However, evidence was obtained to indicate that the observed dTTP inhibition was noncompetitive in nature. This suggests that thymidine and dTTP interact with different sites in the native viral enzyme.