Abstract
The RNA content of plant viruses has been determined following the procedure of WARBURG and CHRISTIAN, after eliminating light scattering of the virus suspensions by calculation using Rayleigh’ s formula or by means of comparison with polystyrene latex suspensions of corresponding turbidity. The general validity of the methods has been proved by measurements on 9 plant viruses. It is shown that the RNA content found by this spectrophotometric method is in good agreement with that amount ascertained by chemical analysis. Based upon these results a mean curve has been drawn which gives the RNA content of a virus from spectrophotometric measurement. This curve also can be used for the determination of the purity of a virus preparation. A special formula is given for the quantitative spectrophotometric analysis of a mixture of two viruses differing in their RNA content.