Journal
JOURNAL OF GENERAL VIROLOGY
Volume 92, Issue -, Pages 2485-2493Publisher
MICROBIOLOGY SOC
DOI: 10.1099/vir.0.036715-0
Keywords
-
Categories
Funding
- Japan Society for the Promotion of Science
- Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology
- ERATO (Japan Science and Technology Agency)
- National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Negatively stained influenza virions sometimes show irregular morphology and are often referred to as pleomorphic. However, this irregular morphology has not been visualized when ultrathin-section transmission and scanning electron microscopies are used. This study focused on the effects of ultracentrifugation on influenza A virion morphology, as negative staining often involves ultracentrifugation to concentrate or purify virions. The morphologies of unfixed, glutaraldehyde-fixed and osmium tetroxide-fixed virions were quantitatively compared before and after ultracentrifugation, and it was found that, without chemical fixation, approximately 30% of virions were altered from oval to irregular shapes following ultracentrifugation. By contrast, most glutaraldehyde-fixed virions remained uniformly elliptical, even after ultracentrifugation. When a virus with an 11 aa deletion at the C terminus of its M2 cytoplasmic tail was ultracentrifuged, its morphology was appreciably deformed compared with that of the wild-type virus. These results demonstrate that the native morphology of influenza A virions is regular but is disrupted by ultracentrifugation, and that the cytoplasmic tail of M2 is important for virion integrity.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available