Analysis of virus-specific RNA species and proteins in Freon-113 preparations of the Borna disease virus.

Treatment of homogenates from Borna disease virus (BDV)-infected brain tissue or cell cultures with Freon-113 yielded infectious particles with a buoyant density of 1.16-1.22 g/ml. Positive- and negative-stranded BDV-specific RNA species as well as three virus-specific proteins, known to be present in BDV-infected cell extracts, were demonstrated in these Freon-treated fractions. When the Freon-purified virus preparations were treated with RNase A prior to RNA extraction, only negative-stranded, genomic RNA was detected in Northern blot hybridizations using sense and antisense RNA probes. These data substantiate that BDV is a negative-stranded RNA virus.