Protein composition of the vaccinia virus mature virion

Abstract The protein content of vaccinia virus mature virions, purified by rate zonal and isopycnic centrifugations and solubilized by SDS or a solution of urea and thiourea, was determined by the accurate mass and time tag technology which uses both tandem mass spectrometry and Fourier transform-ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry to detect tryptic peptides separated by high-resolution liquid chromatography. Eighty vaccinia virus-encoded proteins representing 37% of the 218 genes annotated in the complete genome sequence were detected in at least three analyses. Ten proteins accounted for approximately 80% of the virion mass. Thirteen identified proteins were not previously reported as components of virions. On the other hand, 8 previously described virion proteins were not detected here, presumably due to technical reasons including small size and hydrophobicity. In addition to vaccinia virus-encoded proteins, 24 host proteins omitting isoforms were detected. The most abundant of these were cytoskeletal proteins, heat shock proteins and proteins involved in translation.