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A Comparison of Molecular Weights of Foot-and-Mouth Disease Virus RNA Fragments Determined from Lengths and s-Rates

Plum Island Animal Disease Center, Agricultural Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Greenport, New York 11944, U.S.A.

A comparison was made of the calculated mol. wt. of RNA fragments from foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) types A₁₂ strain 119, C₃ Resende and O₁ Brugge. The mol. wt. were calculated by two methods: from measurements of strand lengths in the electron micrographs and from the observed sedimentation rates (s-rates). RNA extracted from virus by dialysis against water usually had three to four prominent strands of different lengths. Mol. wt. calculated from s-rates (and converted to strand lengths) generally agreed with those measured on electron micrographs. Differences which occurred appeared to be attributable to further breakage during processing for electron microscopy. Major fragment strand lengths range from 0.65 to 2.45 µm. The modal lengths of RNA fragments were preparation-dependent, ranging from 1.25 to 1.95 µm for A₁₂ 119, 1.05 to 1.75 µm for C₃ Resende, and 1.65 to 2.45 µm for O₁ Brugge. There was one fragment length 1.95 µm common to all three types of FMDV RNA and several others which appear in at least two types. Calculations using the molar ratios of nucleotide residues in FMDV RNA, a mol. wt. of FMDV RNA of 2.65 x 10⁶ and an internucleotide spacing of 3.17 Å indicate that intact FMDV RNA should be 2.62 µm long and therefore would contain approx. 8270 nucleotides. The derived mathematical expression for the relationship between mol. wt. (M) and s-rate (S) giving the best fit for all data was M = 1725 S^2.07, a result close to that derived by Spirin (1963) for other single-stranded RNAs.

Received 29 September 1975; accepted 17 November 1975.