Determination of phospholipid composition of RNA tumor viruses by 32P labeling of infected cell cultures

✍ Scribed by James P. Quigley; Daniel B. Rifkin; Miriam H. Einhorn

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1972
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 323 KB
• Volume: 47
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0003-2697
• DOI: 10.1016/0003-2697(72)90156-x

✦ Synopsis

An important substructure of many animal viruses, including the RNA tumor viruses, is the viral envelope, whose major lipid component is pliospholil~id.

Many of these viruses arc purified from cells in culture, and the quantities of virus and membrane that can ordinarily be harvested from each Petri dish are in the microgram range. Since phospholipid analysis by thin-layer chromatography may require milligram quantities of starting material, large volumes of culture fluids and/or infected cells arc needed for detailed studies of viral and membrane l~l~osl~holil~id.

As a basis for investigating the viral and cellular lipids in cultures infected by Rous sarcoma virus and other enveloped viruses, it appeared desirable to simplify the rquirements for starting materials. The starting point for the present method is the observation that cells in culture do not incorporate either intact phospholipid molecules or the lipid phosphorus in serum int'o cellular or viral phospholipids (1). This makes it possible to grow cells for long periods in '+(2P media of known, constant specific radioactivity and permits l~hospholipid analysis of viral and cellular membranes to be performed accurately on microgram amounts of material.