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Structural Differences between Subtype A and B Strains of Respiratory Syncytial Virus

¹ Department of Virology, Karolinska Institute, School of Medicine, SBL, S-105 21 Stockholm, Sweden
and² Department of Medicine, Marshall University School of Medicine and Veterans Administration Medical Center, Huntington, West Virginia, U.S.A.

Differences in the properties of homologous intracellular structural components of eight strains of subtype A and eight strains of subtype B of human respiratory syncytial (RS) virus were examined. The size of the fusion (F) protein cleavage products and the phosphoprotein (P) showed systematic differences between virus strains representing the two subtypes. The apparent mol. wt. in SDS-polyacrylamide gels under reducing conditions was 48000 (48K) and 46K to 47K for the cleavage product F1 in subtype A and B strains, respectively. The size of the F2 protein was 18K to 20K. The subtype B strains showed a slightly higher mol. wt. of this protein compared to the subtype A strains. The size of the P protein was 36K in subtype A strains, but only 34K in subtype B strains. Variations also occurred in the size of the glycoprotein (G) and the 22K to 24K structural protein. These variations did not correlate with the virus subtypes, but were strain-specific. The size of non-glycosylated forms of the F protein cleavage products was determined by use of material from tunicamycin-treated cells. A 44K to 45K non-glycosylated form of the F1 protein was detected with subtype A virus strains, but the corresponding protein of subtype B strains was not reproducibly identified, presumably due to instability in the absence of glycosylation or altered antigenicity. Monoclonal antibody immunosorbent-bound viral glycoproteins were partially digested with proteases. The pattern of breakdown products of the F1 protein was distinctly different between subtype A and B strains, but it was similar among strains of the same subtype. No subtype-specific pattern was seen in proteolytic digests of monoclonal antibody-bound G protein.

Keywords: RS virus, antigenic variation, structural polypeptides

Received 30 June 1986; accepted 28 August 1986.

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