Proteins of Vesicular Stomatitis Virus: Kinetics and Cellular Sites of Synthesis

Abstract

Five viral peptides synthesized in L cells infected with vesicular stomatitis (VS) virus were identified by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and designated as follows: nucleoprotein N, a membrane glycoprotein G, a membrane surface protein S, and two nonstructural proteins NS1 and NS2. A slowly migrating minor structural protein L also present in infected cells is probably an aggregate. Incorporation of 3 H-amino acids into each viral protein could be detected by the 2nd hr after infection and even earlier for protein N which is synthesized in the greatest amount. There was no evidence of regulation of viral protein synthesis at the transcriptive level; nonstructural and structural proteins were synthesized throughout the cycle of infection. Short pulses of 3 H-amino acids revealed no uncleaved precursor peptides that could be chased into structural peptides. Proteins N and S were chased into released virions but protein G was apparently incorporated into virions as it was being synthesized. VS viral proteins of infected cells were released by mechanically disrupting cytoplasmic membrane by nitrogen decompression and fractionated by high-speed centrifugation. Protein NS1 was present in the nonsedimentable cytoplasmic fraction throughout the cycle of infection. The nucleoprotein N was recovered primarily from the nonsedimentable fraction early in infection but aggregated into a sedimentable component, presumably the nucleocapsid, later in infection. Proteins G and S were always present in the sedimentable fraction of mechanically disrupted infected cells, presumably in association with plasma membrane. Exposure of infected cells to the membrane-dissolving agent, digitonin, resulted in solubilization of most of protein G and all of protein S but not of protein N. These experiments are compatible with the hypothesis that VS viral proteins G and S are synthesized at and inserted into plasma membrane which envelopes a nucleocapsid core to form the VS virion.