Chapter VIII 



The Comparative Chemistry of Infective Virus Particles and 

 of other Virus-Specific Products : Animal Viruses * 



Werner Schafer 

 Max Planck Institut fur Virusforschung, Tubingen, Germany 



I. Introduction 475 



II. Definition of the Various Virus-Specific Units 476 



III. Problems and Methods of Chemical Analysis 478 



IV. Chemical Composition of Infective Particles and Other Virus-Specific 



Products 479 



A. Smaller Viruses 479 



1 . Poliomyelitis Virus 479 



2. Rabbit Papilloma Virus 480 



3. Equine Encephalomyelitis Virus 481 



B. Viruses of Medimn Size 482 



1 . Influenza and Fowl Plague Viruses 482 



2. Newcastle Disease Virus 489 



3. Virus of Avian Myeloblastic Leukosis 490 



C. Larger Viruses 491 



1. Vaccinia Virus 491 



D. Summary 495 



V. Origm and Function of the Chemical Constituents of Animal Viruses 499 



References 501 



I. Introduction 



Although the first animal virus was detected nearly sixty years ago by 

 Loeffler and Frosch (1898), our knowledge of the chemical properties of animal 

 viruses is still comj)aratively madequate. WeU-verified observations are 

 available for only a small number of these agents; the virus of foot-and- 

 mouth disease, studied by Loeffler and Frosch (1898), is not yet in this class. 



The cliief obstacle to extensive progress in this field was the difficulty 

 of preparing sufficient quantities of pure virus material. Workers on plant 

 and bacterial viruses were in a much more favorable position. At present, 

 however, the prospects of chemical investigations on animal viruses can be 

 viewed more optimistically, since the methods of their cultivation, assay, 

 and purification, as well as the techniques of chemical analysis, have been 

 greatly improved. 



* The survey of literature pertaining to this chapter was completed in October 1957. 

 The author is greatly indebted to Dr. R, M. Franklin for the translation of the manuscript. 



475 



