POLYPEPTIDES OF BOVINE ROTAVIRUS

Polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis of bovine rotavirus or neonatal calf diarrhoea virus (NCDV) grown in cell culture resolved eight species of polypeptide. The inner shell particles contained five polypeptides and the outer shell three polypeptides. A major polypeptide of the outer shell was glycosylated. The infectivity of NCDV was enhanced by treatment with trypsin in vitro. All eight polypeptides were affected by trypsin treatment as judged by diminished intensity of polypeptide bands by radiography and several new bands appeared. The intracellular synthesis of NCDV polypeptides was studied by pulse and pulse-chase experiments. Infected cells contained all eight virus capsid proteins and, in addition, three presumably virus-specific polypeptides which were non-capsid polypeptides (NCVP). There was no evidence that any of these polypeptides was processed after synthesis. It is suggested, therefore, that all these polypeptides are primary gene products.