Influenza virus infection has adverse effects on the metabolism of two representative RNA polymerase II transcripts in chicken embryo fibroblasts, those coding for beta-actin and for avian leukosis virus (ALV) proteins. Proviral ALV DNA was integrated into host cell DNA by prior infection with ALV. Within 1 h after influenza virus infection, the rate of transcription of beta-actin and ALV sequences decreased 40 to 60%, as determined by labeling the cells for 5 min with [3H]uridine and by in vitro, runoff assays with isolated nuclei. The transcripts that continued to be synthesized did not appear in the cytoplasm as mature mRNAs, and the kinetics of labeling of these transcripts strongly suggest that they were degraded in the nucleus. By S1 endonuclease assay, it was confirmed that nuclear ALV transcripts disappeared very early after infection, already decreasing ca. 80% by 1 h postinfection. A plausible explanation for this nuclear degradation is that the viral cap-dependent endonuclease in the nucleus cleaves the 5' ends of new polymerase II transcripts, rendering the resulting decapped RNAs susceptible to hydrolysis by cellular nucleases. In contrast to the nuclear transcripts, cytoplasmic beta-actin and ALV mRNAs, which are synthesized before infection, were more stable and did not decrease in amount until after 3 h postinfection. Similar stability of cytoplasmic host cell mRNAs was observed in infected HeLa cells, in which the levels of actin mRNA and two HeLa cell mRNAs (pHe 7 and pHe 28) remained at undiminished levels for 3 h of infection and decreased only slightly by 4.5 h postinfection. The cytoplasmic actin and pHe 7 mRNAs isolated from infected HeLa cells were shown to be translated in reticulocyte extracts in vitro, indicating that host mRNAs were not inactivated by a virus-induced modification. Despite the continued presence of high levels of functional host cell mRNAs, host cell protein synthesis was effectively shut off by about 3 h postinfection in both chicken embryo fibroblasts and HeLa cells. These results are consistent with the establishment of an influenza virus-specific translational system that selectively translates viral and not host mRNAs.