Diffraction studies of papaya mosaic virus.

X-ray and optical diffraction studies of the flexuous papaya mosaic virus are described. The virus is constructed so that there are 35 coat protein subunits in 4 turns of the helix. The virus contains about 1410 protein subunits and 6800 nucleotides and has a molecular weight of about 33 x 10(6). The structure of tubes assembled in vitro from coat protein both in the presence and absence of nucleic acid resembles that of the native virus.