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J Virol. 1967 August; 1(4): 711-716
Copyright © 1967 American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Characterization of an Infectivity Assay for the Ribonucleic Acid of Bacteriophage MS2 ¹

^a Division of Biology, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91109

ABSTRACT

An infectivity assay for MS2 ribonucleic acid (RNA), which uses bacterial spheroplasts of an F^– strain of Escherichia coli, has an efficiency of 10^–5 infected spheroplasts per RNA molecule. The characteristics of this assay and the influence of several parameters are presented. Important variables include the duration of exposure of the cells to lysozyme-ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid, the duration of exposure of the spheroplast stock to the RNA solutions before dilution, the concentration of RNA, and the presence of competing RNA. The growth kinetics of the virus in the infected spheroplasts and the extent of lysis have also been studied.

² Present address: Department of Biochemistry, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, N.Y. 10461.

¹ The results presented here are part of a thesis by James H. Strauss, Jr., submitted to the California Institute of Technology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Ph.D. degree.