Expression and regulation of the vaccinia virus thymidine kinase gene in non-permissive cells.

The expression and regulation of the vaccinia virus (VV) thymidine kinase (tk) gene was examined in two non-permissive cell lines, CHO and MDBK, which restrict VV development at different stages of the viral replication cycle. The VV tk gene was expressed in these two cell lines with kinetics similar to a fully permissive cell line BSC40. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that inhibition of tk mRNA translation by another viral early gene product is a normal component of the overall strategy employed to express and regulate the VV tk gene during a productive infection.