Isolation and characterization of tubular structures of cowpea mosaic virus.

Tubular structures involved in the cell-to-cell movement of cowpea mosaic virus (CPMV) were partially purified from infected cowpea protoplasts to identify the structural components. A relatively pure fraction could be obtained by differential centrifugation and this was analysed by PAGE and immunoblotting. Besides the movement protein (MP) and capsid proteins (CP) of CPMV, no other major infection-specific proteins could be detected, suggesting that host proteins are not a major structural component of the movement tubule.