Abstract
ELECTRON micrographs of tomato spotted wilt virus (TSWV), when stained by uranyl acetate or lead hydroxide, revealed the presence of an envelope surrounding an aggregate of several heavily staining spheroidal particles1. The envelopes stain only lightly with these reagents, suggesting that the envelopes contained lipid. Accordingly, a purified preparation of the virus was examined to test this hypothesis. By direct extraction with organic solvents the preparation was shown to contain about 20 per cent extractable lipid. Thin-layer chromatography of these extracts revealed a number of spots which gave a blue colour when treated with a molybdenum-based stain2. Although lipid has long been known to form part of some animal viruses there is no record of the presence of a lipid in a plant virus.
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