A novel approach to the study of glycolipid receptors for viruses

Abstract

A method for the binding of virus to a silica gel thin‐layer chromatogram is presented. After development the chromatogram is overlayed with the ¹²⁵I‐labelled virus and the bound virus is autoradiographed. Alternatively, the unlabelled virus may be detected after exposure to monoclonal antibody and labelled anti‐antibody. The Sendai virus strain used did not bind to brain gangliosides earlier proposed to be receptors, but bound to human erythrocyte gangliosides. This finding may be explained by the existence of Sendai virus variants with different receptor specificities.