Abstract
A method is described for staining virus particles from fluid suspensions with uranyl acetate and phosphotungstic acid so as to enhance contrast for electron microscopy and yet maintain good structural detail. The method requires 100–1000 times less virus concentration than the spray droplet technique. Staining can be substituted for metal shadowing in the agar pseudoreplication technique and can be used for counting virus particles. Treatment with uranyl acetate reduces structural distortion of herpes virus particles on drying. Substantial differences have been noted between the appearance of RNA- and DNA-containing animal viruses after staining. Under the same conditions the cores of DNA-type viruses stain intensely with uranyl acetate, whereas the RNA-type viruses do not. The combined use of specific nuclease, negative staining (phosphotungstate), and positive staining (uranyl acetate) is suggested as a means of differentiating RNA from DNA viruses by microscopy.
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