PREPARATION AND PROPERTIES OF PROTEIN AND NUCLEIC ACID COMPONENTS OF PEA ENATION MOSAIC VIRUS

Preparations of pea enation mosaic virus (PEMV), purified by a procedure designed to handle large quantities of infected plant material easily, contained four sedimenting components; the two components that sedimented the most rapidly were aggregates of the major virus component. The virus contains 2.48% phosphorus and 28-30% RNA. PEMV nucleic acid in intact virus had an extinction coefficient of 23.2/mg/ml/cm at 260 mμ and a hypochromicity of 0.68, and consisted of 24.1% adenylic acid, 26.1% guanylic acid, 24.0 cytidylic acid, and 25.8% uridylic acid. The virus has a single structural protein with a relatively high content of basic amino acids. The protein is comprised of approximately 199 amino acid residues and has a molecular weight of 21,800. © 1968.