Electrophoretic migration rate differences of polypeptides of human influenza A viruses: partial analysis of the genome of influenza vaccine recombinant viruses.

Electrophoretic migration rate differences were detected in high resolution SDS polyacrylamide gels for nucleoprotein (NP), matrix protein (M), non structural protein (NS1), haemagglutinin (HA) annd, less regularly, for the polymerase polypeptides P1, P2 and P3 induced by different influenza A viruses. The technique allowed parental assignation of the corresponding genes in certain recombinant viruses including A/PR/8/34 (H0N1)--A/HK/117/77 (H1N1), A/Okuda/57 (H2N2)--A/HK/119/77 (H1N1) and A/Leningrad/76 (H3N2)--A/Leningrad/46 (H0N1) recombinants, thus considerably extending the technique which had been applied previously to A/PR/8/34--A/HK/68 (H3N2) only. Agreement in gene assignment between three recombinants of the former group and 11 of 17 recombinants in the A/Okuda/57--A/HK/119/77 group was noted when the data obtained using the polypeptide method was correlated with a direct genetic analysis by others using RNA:RNA hybridisation techniques. The polypeptide method appears to have wide application for the initial rapid analysis of influenza A virus recombinants obtained using parents of different influenza subtypes although complete analysis of the total genome requires the use of RNA hybridisation techniques. Two additional virus induced proteins are described, a phosphorylated form of NS 1 and a non structual polypeptide with a molecular weight of 16K daltons.