Structural-Analysis Of Major Envelope Glycoprotein (Gp70) Of Amphotropic And Ecotropic Type-C Viruses Of Wild Mice

Virus-associated and free serum gp70s from wild mice ( Mus musculus ) were isolated by immunoaffinity column chromatography and were analyzed by two-dimensional tryptic peptide mapping procedures. Our results show that the gp70s of wild mouse ecotropic and amphotropic MuLVs are structurally divergent. The gp70s of wild mouse ecotropic viruses are more similar in structure to the Gross-AKR MuLV subgroup than to the FMR subgroup. The gp70s of the amphotropic wild mouse viruses are highly conserved in structure and are closely related to those of one group of xenotropic MuLVs. Non-virion-associated free serum gp70 of wild mice is homologous to that of inbred laboratory mouse strains.