TOBACCO MOSAIC-VIRUS - A MODEL ANTIGEN TO STUDY VIRUS-ANTIBODY INTERACTIONS

For more than 50 years, tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) has been used as a model system for studying various aspects of virus-antibody interactio ns. Distinct epitopes called neotopes and cryptotopes have been identi fied in intact TMV particles and dissociated viral protein respectivel y and a correlation has been found to exist between the location of co ntinuous epitopes and the extent of segmental mobility along the viral polypeptide chain. The occurrence of bivalent antibody binding was sh own to influence the observed affinity of TMV antibodies and kinetic m easurements of antibody binding to viral peptides made it possible to analyze the mechanism of binding of monoclonal antibodies. It seems li kely that the TMV model will continue to yield a rich harvest of immun ochemical data relevant to many viral systems.