This study demonstrates that the glycoprotein of vesicular stomatitis virus clusters in the plasma membrane of infected Chinese hamster lung cells during morphogenesis and suggests that viral nucleocapsids are required for this clustering. A mutant virus (ts E-1) which is temperature sensitive for the synthesis of viral nucleocapsids but not viral membrane proteins was used. The surface distribution of the viral glycoprotein in cells infected by this virus was determined by a specific indirect immunoferritin stain. Early in infection at permissive temperatures, the glycoprotein was randomly distributed on membrane ghosts. Later, clusters of ferritin the size and shape of virus particles were seen. In contrast, ghosts prepared from virus-infected cells maintained at a restrictive temperature always had a random distribution of viral glycoprotein.Integral membrane proteins span the membranes with which they are associated and may participate in significant molecular interactions on both sides of the membrane. In many cases, these proteins are freely diffusible in the plane of the membrane (37). An increasing number of membrane proteins, however, are found to be distributed over the surface of the cell in a nonrandom fashion. For example, Ash et al. (1) have shown that several antibody-patched integral membrane proteins are arranged in linear arrays on the surface of cultured fibroblasts, specific receptor molecules are frequently localized in defined regions of the membrane, and viral glycoproteins of lipid-containing viruses are localized in regions of the membrane active in virus assembly (8). The molecular interactions which lead to the nonrandom distribution of integral proteins are currently under active study in a number of laboratories. Evidence is accumulating which indicates that the linear arrays of membrane proteins visible on the surface of fibroblasts result from interactions of domains of these proteins present on the cytoplasmic surface with elements of the cytoskeleton (1, 14,22). In the case of the best-studied receptor system, that of the low-density lipoproteins, the molecules appear to be inserted into the membrane at random sites and then to migrate laterally in the plane of the membrane until they reach a "coated pit." A domain of the receptor presumed to be on the cytoplasmic side t Present address: