Acrylamide-gel electrophorograms by mechanical fractionation: radioactive adenovirus proteins.

A mechanical fractionator was developed to produce electrophorograms by extrusion of polyacrylamide gels through a narrow orifice in a continuous, sequential stream. The system permits separation of uniform fractions free of zone distortion. An electrophorogram of radioactive type-2 adenovirus proteins so fractionated gave a pattern in excellent agreement with the pattern obtained by laborious manual sectioning and in agreement with the pattern obtained on a replicate gel stained with Coomassie brilliant blue R250. The adenovirus particle yielded about ten resolvable protein components in unequal amounts. Like picornaviruses, these icosahedral animal viruses have multiple protein components in the viral coat.