Immune precipitation with a monospecific antiserum was employed to study the synthesis of the major viral glycoprotein gp85. Labeled gp85 was detectable by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis of immune precipitates prepared from lysates of transformed cells which had been labeled for long term with radioactive amino acid or fucose. When immune precipitates were prepared from lysates of cells pulse-labeled with radioactive amino acid, the bulk of the precipitated counts did not appear in gp85 but in a heterogeneous protein fraction with a mean molecular weight of approximately 70,000; this fraction has been designated p70. If, however, the pulse label was followed by incubation of the cells in medium containing excess unlabeled amino acid, the bulk of the precipitated counts comigrated with gp85. Similar pulse-labeling experiments with radioactive fucose and glucosamine suggested that p70 represents incompletely glycosylated precursor to gp85.

Ribonucleic acid extracted from influenza virus was labeled at the 3' termini with 3H and analyzed by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. Influenza virus was found to contain a minimum of seven and possibly as many as 10 polynucleotide chains, most of which appear to terminate at the 3' end in uridine.

A virus originally isolated from cell cultures obtained by lysolecithin-induced fusion of human multiple sclerosis brain cells with CV-1 cells has been analyzed for its antigenic, RNA, and polypeptide compositions, and for selective biological properties. Our findings establish that this isolate, designated 6/94 virus, contains a 50 S RNA genome and is, as yet, indistinguishable from Sendai virus in its antigenic and total polypeptide compositions. Despite these similarities, the 6/94 and Sendai viruses differ in certain phenotypic properties. 6/94 virus is markedly less cytocidal for chick fibroblasts, especially at 37 C and, after β-propiolactone inactivation, it possesses a greater capacity for cell fusion and a lower toxicity than does comparably treated Sendai virus. In addition, 6/94 virus shows greater hemolytic activity.