ANALYSIS OF VIRUS-SPECIFIC RNA SPECIES AND PROTEINS IN FREON-113 PREPARATIONS OF THE BORNA-DISEASE VIRUS

Treatment of homogenates from Borna disease virus (BDV)-infected brain tissue or cell cultures with Freon-113 yielded infectious particles w ith a buoyant density of 1.16-1.22 g/ml. Positive- and negative-strand ed BDV-specific RNA species as well as three virus-specific proteins, known to be present in BDV-infected cell extracts, were demonstrated i n these Freon-treated fractions. When the Freon-purified virus prepara tions were treated with RNase A prior to RNA extraction, only negative -stranded, genomic RNA was detected in Northern blot hybridizations us ing sense and antisense RNA probes. These data substantiate that BDV i s a negative-stranded RNA virus.