Purification and Electron Microscopy of Foot-and-Mouth Disease Virus

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Abstract
Foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV), type A, from bovine-kidney tissue cultures was purified suc cessively by methanol precipitation, extraction with organic solvents, and differential centrifugation. The FMDV particle in the resulting purified virus concentrates was identified by analytical electron micro scopy in air-dried specimens as a uniform-sized 22-m[mu] particle. This identification was made through correlative experiments relating particle counts to infectivity and to aggregation of the particles with immune bovine serum. While an average of 690 virus particles was present in one plague-forming unit for bovine-kidney monolayer cultures, a value as low as 33 was obtained.