Medical Microbiology and Immunology 1993-11-01

Analysis of virus-specific RNA species and proteins in Freon-113 preparations of the Borna disease virus.

J A Richt, J E Clements, S Herzog, J Pyper, K Wahn, H Becht

Index: Med. Microbiol. Immunol. 182(5) , 271-80, (1993)

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Abstract

Treatment of homogenates from Borna disease virus (BDV)-infected brain tissue or cell cultures with Freon-113 yielded infectious particles with a buoyant density of 1.16-1.22 g/ml. Positive- and negative-stranded BDV-specific RNA species as well as three virus-specific proteins, known to be present in BDV-infected cell extracts, were demonstrated in these Freon-treated fractions. When the Freon-purified virus preparations were treated with RNase A prior to RNA extraction, only negative-stranded, genomic RNA was detected in Northern blot hybridizations using sense and antisense RNA probes. These data substantiate that BDV is a negative-stranded RNA virus.