Nature of the Inactivating Action of Trypsin on Foot-and-Mouth Disease Virus

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Abstract
The infectivity of suspensions of foot-and-mouth disease virus is greatly reduced by incubation with trypsin. Preliminary studies with unfractionated suspensions suggested that the viral RNA was not involved in the inactivation because the infectivity of the RNA extracted with phenol from the enzyme-treated suspensions was as high as that from the untreated virus (1). The reduction in infectivity was probably due to the failure of the virus to adsorb to the susceptible cells. This report describes a more detailed investigation of the mode of inactivation, using purified virus labelled with 32P- or 14C. Virus of type 0 was grown in BHK21 cells (2) using a phosphate-low medium containing 1 µg. actinomycin D/ml. and labelled with 14C, or Earle's saline containing protein hydrolysate phosphate labelled with 32P. The virus was purified by the method described by Brown & Cartwright (3). In a typical experiment with 32P-labelled virus, the infectivity was reduced from 6·3 × 108 plaque forming units (p.f.u.)/ml. to 1·8 × 105p.f.u./ml. by incubation with 1 mg. trypsin/ml. for 15 min. at 37°.

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