The Kinetics of Antibody Inactivation of Tobacco Mosaic Virus

[摘要] Because of the present limitation of the TMV assay, inactivation studies are restricted to a competing bimolecular reaction range, a range which is dependent upon the concentrations of both antibody and virus molecules. At these concentrations virus-antibody aggregates are known to occur (1). Within these aggregates some virus valences may remain uncombined and inaccessible to free antibody. Under the circumstances, a kinetic analysis of events is exceedingly difficult. By proper adjustment of the antibody-virus concentrations, the initial reaction of B + V → BV , has been studied. The analysis was reduced to its simplest form by measuring only V active → V inactive. This reaction may be considered pseudomonomolecular, and as the data suggest, it approaches first order kinetics.The analysis of the reaction kinetics in terms of the Michaelis-Menten equation is one of convenience only. No suggestion to the effect that inactivation is enzymic in nature is intended. The approach is useful however, in affording an additional and precise means for studying virus inactivation. The lack of a lag period observed in any of the kinetic experiments suggests that inactivation is accomplished by a single event, and that if there are a number of critical sites present on the virus particle, covering any one of them by a single antibody molecule effectively prevents the virus from reproducing itself.

[学科分类] 生物科学（综合）