Thermal Degradation of Foot–and–Mouth Disease Virus Into Infectious Ribonucleic Acid.

Summary Foot–and–mouth disease virus (FMDV) heated at 61° to 85° C yields infectious ribonucleic acid (RNA) when either sodium dodecylsulfate (SDS) is present to inactivate environmental ribonuclease (RNase) or when this enzyme is removed before heating the virus. Heat alone degrades FMDV into infectious RNA, and hot SDS only serves to inactivate RNase. Subsequent phenol treatments of heat–derived infectious RNA preparations did not significantly add to the amount of infectious RNA present.