A procedure to verify an amino acid sequence which has been derived from a nucleotide sequence: application to the 26S RNA of Semliki Forest virus.

We describe a peptide sequencing procedure which can be used to verify an amino acid sequence which is derived from a nucleotide sequence. One first labels the protein with a 3H- and a 14C-labelled amino acid and then cleaves the protein into a set of peptides using a cleavage reaction specific for a particular amino acid residue. Finally one performs Edman degradations on the whole mixture of peptides. The released amino acids reflect the combined aminoterminal amino acid sequences of all the peptides that have been formed by the cleavage reaction. The data can therefore be used to check a deduced sequence simultaneously at several regions of the polypeptide chain. We have applied this sequencing procedure to verify the amino acid sequence deduced from the 26S RNA of Semliki Forest virus.