Some Aspects of the Structure and Behavior of Tobacco Mosaic Virus

Abstract

The remarkable elucidation of the structure of tobacco mosaic virus ( TMV) in recent years, together with the demonstration that its nucleic acid moiety is sufficient to initiate infection, has sharply increased the tempo of research on this virus. An indication of the rapidity with which knowledge of TMV is accumulating is found in the fact that several ' excel­ lent reviews (1 to 5) have appeared recently. In this discussion we will attempt to present an integrated view of the TMV infective process, start­ ing with an account of the current knowledge of the structure and chemical composition of the virus and following this with an exposition of recent in­ formation on strain variation and induced mutation. The ensuing discus­ sion will concern the intracellular events of TMV infection. We have started with the premise that the virus-caused disease is to be understood primarily in terms of the interactions between virus and single host cells and have, therefore, limited our coverage of the enormous TMV literature to those papers that have a direct bearing on this aspect of TMV virology.