Über die Spaltung physikalisch intakter Poliovirus-Teilchen in Nucleinsäure und leere Proteinhüllen durch Wärmebehandlung

Abstract

Purified preparations of poliovirus devoid of contaminating nucleic acid and so-called “C antigen” released their particle-bound ribonucleic acid (RNA) almost quantitatively on heating at 40°C for 48 hours in phosphate-buffered saline (pH 7.6). This process occurred without disruption of the virus protein and left, in addition to the free RNA and traces of undegraded virus particles, empty protein shells in the reaction mixture. The liberated RNA sedimented in the analytical ultracentrifuge as a very diffuse boundary with sedimentation coefficients (s20, w) in the range from about 8 S to less than 1 S. The shell material which could be isolated by means of sucrose density-gradient centrifugation proved to be homogeneous in the analytical ultracentrifuge. Its sedimentation coefficient (s20,w) extrapolated to zero protein concentration was found to be 78 S.