Virion polypeptides of poxviruses.

Structural polypeptides from a number of poxviruses were analysed by SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. The patterns obtained with orthopoxviruses were generally quite similar to one another, but variola, monkeypox, cowpox and vaccinia viruses could be distinquished by their profiles in the molecular weight (mol. wt.) region around 30,000 to 40,000; some additional variation was found amongst cowpox and vaccinia strains. Whitepox virus was shown to have structural polypeptides indistinguishable from those of variola virus. The structural polypeptides of poxviruses belonging to other genera were different from those of the orthopoxvirus, except those of mol. wt. about 122,000 and 97,000, which were common to all viruses irrespective of genus. A polypeptide of mol. wt. about 25,000 was also observed in all cases, though its position varied slightly with the individual virus.