Verwoerd D W, Els H J, De Villiers E M, Huismans H
J Virol. 1972 Oct;10(4):783-94. doi: 10.1128/JVI.10.4.783-794.1972.
Seven polypeptides were found to be present in the capsid of the bluetongue virus (BTV), four of which are major and three are minor components. This number and size distribution is the same as that found in reovirus, which has a similar segmented, double-stranded ribonucleic acid genome. In both viruses an excellent correlation is found between the molecular weights of certain genome segments and those of the polypeptides, suggesting a direct coding relationship between them. Careful comparison, however, indicates that the correlation patterns of the two viruses are different, suggesting that different genome segments may be utilized to code for certain capsid proteins. This phenomenon may be related to the fact that these viruses can be distinguished morphologically, reovirus having a larger diameter and possessing a double-layered capsid against the smaller single capsid of the BTV. Utilizing the degrading effect of CsCl gradients, it was demonstrated, however, that two of the BTV polypeptides are present as a diffuse protein layer surrounding the capsid. This outer layer probably has some of the functions of the reovirus outer capsid, one being the "masking" of a viral transcriptase which could be demonstrated after its removal.
在蓝舌病毒（BTV）的衣壳中发现了七种多肽，其中四种是主要成分，三种是次要成分。这个数量和大小分布与呼肠孤病毒相同，呼肠孤病毒具有类似的分段双链核糖核酸基因组。在这两种病毒中，某些基因组片段的分子量与多肽的分子量之间存在极好的相关性，表明它们之间存在直接的编码关系。然而，仔细比较表明，这两种病毒的相关模式不同，这表明不同的基因组片段可能被用于编码某些衣壳蛋白。这种现象可能与以下事实有关：这些病毒在形态上可以区分，呼肠孤病毒直径较大，具有双层衣壳，而BTV的衣壳较小且为单层。然而，利用CsCl梯度的降解作用证明，BTV的两种多肽以围绕衣壳的弥散蛋白层形式存在。这个外层可能具有呼肠孤病毒外衣壳的一些功能，其中之一是对病毒转录酶的“掩盖”，去除外层后可以证明这一点。
