Different primary structure of 2 variants of Friend virus p 30 polypeptide separated by isoelectric focusing

: Variants of p 30 (iso-p 30s), the 30,000 dalton major polypeptide of murine C-type retraviruses, have been characterized in all virus strains by isoelectric focusing. Several of these iso-p 30s have been found to coexist in a given virus strain. In the present study, two iso-p 30s, characteristic of the Friend-Rauscher subgroup, separated by preparative isoelectric focusing of p 30 in thin layers of polydextran gel, were subjected to tryptic peptide mapping and aminoacid analysis. The two iso-p 30s, with isoelectric points (pI) of 6.5 and 7.1, were found to possess a partially different primary structure, with about 50% homology. The results are discussed.