VIEW ARTICLE

Host Range and Purification of the Nucleic Acid of a Defective Mutant of Tobacco Mosaic Virus. R. B. Bhalla, Department of Plant Pathology and Division of Biological Sciences, University of Missouri, Columbia 65201, Present address of the senior author: Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research, New York 10021; O. P. Sehgal, Department of Plant Pathology and Division of Biological Sciences, University of Missouri, Columbia 65201. Phytopathology 63:906-910. Accepted for publication 24 January 1973. DOI: 10.1094/Phyto-63-906.

A defective mutant, existing in vivo as “free” nucleic acid, was isolated following treatment of tobacco mosaic virus strain U₁ (TMV-U₁) with nitrous acid. This mutant was transmitted to several solanaceous plants, in which it induced a variety of symptoms but its systemic movement was slow. An extraction medium was developed for isolating this mutant from leaves, and it was subsequently purified by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. Under conditions of virus reconstitution, incubation of mutant nucleic acid with TMV-U₁ protein, but not with bovine serum albumin, resulted in a 10-to 15-fold increase in its infectivity.