Synthesis of long cDNA from viral RNA template

Abstract

Methods to make long and reliable cDNA from viral RNA template have been optimized. The conditions of the denaturation of the viral RNA template were most critical. For synthesis of the first DNA strand, the concentration of the primer and the presence of an RNase inhibitor were important. During the synthesis of the second strand, the incubation temperature was found to have effect on the length of the transcripts. Application of our optimized conditions on coronaviral genomic RNA as template resulted in cDNA libraries with inserts in the range of 0.5–5 kb without a separate cDNA size selection. Furthermore, a convenient variant of the alcohol precipitation and the analysis of single-stranded DNA on neutral agarose gels are described.