Similarity between Gibbon Ape and Woolly Monkey Type-C Virus Internal Antigens by Quantitative Micro-Complement Fixation

Abstract

A quantitative complement-fixation procedure was used to determine the immunologic relatedness of the 30,000 molecular weight internal protein of type-C viruses isolated from a woolly monkey and a gibbon ape. These proteins appear to be 96–98% sequence-related based on the relationship between cross-reactivity and primary sequence established for model proteins, especially by Wilson and co-workers. This degree of relationship has previously been found only for viruses isolated from a single species. Along with molecular hybridization data suggesting a lack of relationship to cellular DNA of the supposed host species, these data suggest a common origin of the two primate viruses from a currently unknown source.