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The pH-Stability of the Elementary Bodies of Vaccinia

Department of Surgery, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, North Carolina

Ralph W. G. Wyckoff

Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, Princeton, New Jersey

Abstract

The pH range of infectiousness of purified suspensions of the elementary bodies of vaccinia has been determined by titration in rabbits. This infectiousness is most stable between pH 4.5 and pH 10. On the acid side inactivation is immediate below 2.5, on the alkaline side above 11.5. In the analytical ultracentrifuge purified active suspensions give a single fairly sharp boundary with the sedimentation constant s_20° = 5400 x 10^–13 cm. sec.^–1 dynes^–1. The elementary bodies become lighter, and hence are broken down, at those pH values at which they are immediately inactivated. The isoelectric point has been determined to be between pH 4.3 and 4.6.