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Abstract
SUMMARY: Preparations of cowpox and vaccinia viruses, grown on rabbit skin and on chick chorioallantois, purified by methods involving Arcton treatment or centrifugation in sucrose density gradients gave electrophoretically reproducible materials. A micro-electrophoresis technique is described with which measurements may be made conveniently and reproducibly on individual virus particles suspended in buffered molar sucrose solutions. The viruses had a mobility of approximately —0.4 μ/sec./V./cm. in molar sucrose at pH 7 and ionic strength 0.05, their negative charge decreasing with decreasing pH value to give isoelectric points at pH 4.3 for cowpox, 3.7 for egg-grown vaccinia and 3.0 for rabbit-grown vaccinia; in greater acidities the viruses were positively charged. The results showed close reproducibility for the final preparations of cowpox of different origin and treatment, suggesting that the virus suspensions were relatively pure and free from adsorbed or extraneous material. Similar reproducibility was found for rabbit-grown vaccinia virus preparations, but there was some variation among different preparations of egg-grown vaccinia virus.
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