Characterization of Bluetongue Virus Ribonucleic Acid

Abstract

An improved purification procedure yielded bluetongue virus free from any single-stranded ribonucleic acid (RNA) component. Double-stranded RNA obtained from purified virus or isolated from infected cells was fractionated into 5 components by means of sucrose gradient sedimentation analysis, and into 10 components by electrophoresis on polyacrylamide gels. The size of these components vary from 0.5 × 10 6 to 2.8 × 10 6 daltons, with a total molecular weight estimate of about 1.5 × 10 7 for the viral nucleic acid. The denaturation of the genome and separation of the resulting fragments are also discussed.