Molecular Mechanism of De Novo Replication by the Ebola Virus Polymerase

Using Ebola virus (EBOV) L polymerase as a representative, investigators showed that de novo replication of L polymerase was controlled by the specific 3’ leader sequence of EBOV genome in an enzymatic assay, and formation of at least three base pairs can effectively drive the elongation process of RNA synthesis independent of the specific RNA sequence.