CONSTITUENTS OF ELEMENTARY BODIES OF VACCINIA : I. CERTAIN BASIC ANALYSES AND OBSERVATIONS ON LIPID COMPONENTS OF THE VIRUS

The results of chemical analyses reveal that it is possible to secure preparations of elementary bodies of vaccinia that possess a considerable uniformity in their chemical constituents. Furthermore, the amounts of certain of these constituents, namely, nitrogen, alpha-amino nitrogen after hydrolysis, phosphorus, total fat, phospholipid, neutral fat, reducing sugar after hydrolysis, and cystine, in the purified virus are significantly different from those in the various materials discarded during the process of purification. The amounts of phospholipid and neutral fat in the virus preparations are not appreciably affected by extraction with ethyl ether or by digestion with lipase, procedures which do not inactivate the virus. Cholesterol, on the contrary, is apparently completely removed by these manipulations, and hence is not considered to play an important part in the economy of the virus.