The 46K outer capsid protein encoded by RNA segment $8 and the 42K polypeptide, previously thought to be the segment S9-encoded structural protein, were isolated from a rice dwarf phytoreovirus purified preparation, and then analysed by peptide mapping and electroblot-ELISA. Staphylococcus aureus V8 protease peptide mapping patterns of the 42K and 46K proteins were similar. Two monoclonal antibodies (MAbs), obtained after immunization with virus particles dissociated by 0.1% SDS, were each specific for both the 42K and 46K proteins. Furthermore, the MAbs bound common peptide fragments which were generated by digestion of the 42K and 46K proteins with V8 protease or proteinase K. These results strongly suggest that the 42K protein is not a gene product of $9 but a product overlapping with the 46K outer capsid protein. Whether the two proteins are functionally distinct remains to be determined.Rice dwarf phytoreovirus (RDV) (Boccardo & Milne, 1984) is considered to contain a genome composed of t2 segmented dsRNAs and seven structural proteins. The genomic RNAs are termed S1 to Sl2 in increasing order of mobility in a polyacrylamide gel. It was reported by Nakata et al. (1978) that the seven constituent proteins were encoded by S1, $2, $3, $5, $7, $8 and $9 based both on their potential coding capacities as monocistronic mRNAs and on the sizes of the polypeptides detected in the virus particles.