Surface features of potato virus X from fiber diffraction.

Fiber diffraction patterns have been obtained from oriented sols of potato virus X. Orientation in the sols was greatly improved by a combination of centrifugation and exposure to very high magnetic fields. Diffraction patterns were also improved by using a very finely collimated synchrotron X-ray beam. The diffraction patterns show that there are 8.9 subunits in each turn of the viral helix and that intersecting sets of deep grooves mark the viral surface, with one set running almost longitudinally and the other following the simple viral helix.