Evidence for a glycoprotein in reovirus

Using both in vivo and in vitro labeling procedures, the presence of carbohydrate has been demonstrated in purified reovirions. Upon polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis this carbohydrate migrates with the medium size class of reovirus polypeptides. This sugar moiety is probably a trimer or tetramer linked O-glycosidically to a serine or threonine residue of the μ₂ polypeptide and the sugar residue at the nonreducing terminus is N-acetyl neuraminic acid. Preliminary evidence for the presence of N-acetyl galactosamine and galactose was also obtained. A quantitative determination of the carbohydrate content suggested that only 10 to 20 of the 550 μ₂ polypeptides per virion were glycosylated.