Study of the gag-coded polyproteins of type D retroviruses. Block of glycosylation inhibits the processing of major structural protein.

The study of the gag-coded glycosylated polyprotein (gPr78gag) from type D retrovirus-producing cells is reported. It is shown that glycosylation inhibitors tunicamycin and 2-deoxy-D-glucose are blocking the synthesis of gPr78gag. This demonstrates that gPr78gag is a N-glycan. The protein part of gPr78gag is supposedly identified (MW = 65 k). The inhibitors used partially stopped the processing of gag-coded polyprotein Pr78gag into core protein p27 as shown in pulse-chase experiments.