Physicochemical studies on turnip-yellow-mosaic virus. Homogeneity, relative molecular masses, hydrodynamic radii and concentration-dependence of parameters in non-dissociating solvents

Abstract

Turnip-yellow-mosaic virus, with its stable, highly spherical and monodisperse character, was chosen as a suitable model substance with which to test hydrodynamic theories of transport. Sedimentation coefficients, diffusion coefficients (obtained through photon correlation spectroscopy) and viscosities were measured accurately as a function of concentration in well-defined and nearly neutral buffer systems. Ancillary information was also obtained from very-low-speed sedimentation-equilibrium experiments. The coefficients expressing the variation in sedimentation and diffusion coefficients with weight concentration were obtained, and by combination with other data it was possible to avoid assumptions concerning solvation and transform such regression coefficients into the form appropriate to volume fractions. Some measure of support for Batchelor's [(1972) J. Fluid Mech. 52, 245-268] calculations was thus obtained, but over most of the pH range the coefficients were significantly smaller than those calculated from his theory. It seems likely that electrostatic interactions are responsible for the discrepancies. Hydrodynamic radii (from diffusion coefficients) were in very fair agreement with those calculated from the thermodynamic excluded-volume term, but were higher than indicated by electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction, a discrepancy ascribable to solvation.