Processing of the encephalomyocarditis virus capsid precursor protein studied in rabbit reticulocyte lysates incubated with N-formyl-[35S]methionine-tRNAfMet.

Translation of encephalomyocarditis virus RNA in rabbit reticulocyte lysates in the presence of N-formyl-[(35)S]methionine-tRNA(f) (Met) revealed that a small polypeptide is cleaved from the N-terminus of the capsid protein precursor, preA, by virus-coded protease activity. Therefore, this N-terminal segment comprising the translation initiation site is not conserved in any of the mature capsid proteins.