On the Tobacco Mosaic Virus contained in Manufactured Tobacco.

Abstract

The present paper deals with a study on tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) contained in manufactured tobacco. The following kinds of commercial tobacco which had been manufactured in Japan in 1954, were tested in order to see to what extent they might carry the TMV: 1) six kinds of cigarettes and their scraps, 2) one kind of cigars, 3) two kinds of pipe obaccos, 4) three kinds of fine cut tobaccos and their scraps. The samples were collected from 21 factories all over the country, and were tested by rubbing inoculation of tobacco seedlings with extracted juice with carborundum. Of 126, 126, 3, 6, 42 and 42 samples tested, 123 (97%) of cigarettes, 124 (98%) of their scraps, 3 (100%) of cigars, 3 (50%) of pipe tobaccos, 36 (86%) of fine cuts, and 41 (98%) of their scraps, respectively, caused mosaic on inoculated tobacco plants. None of samples of Momoyama, pipe tobacco, caused mosaic. However, the yellow component separated from the sample caused mosaic, though the blackened one did not. According to the tests of local lesion method on Nicotiana glutinosa, there were no consistent differences in TMV concentration between cigarette and fine cut, and between each of them and its scrap. The TMV concentrations examined in 3 cigarette samples were about 5×10^-4-10^-4 of that in fresh mosaic leaf grown in a greenhouse, per same weight. These figures are rather high, regarding the danger of infection of tobacco plant in the field. Electron micrographs of three preparations of TMV purified by ultracentrifuge from distilled water extracts of cigarette, from tobacco plants inoculated with the extracts, and from plants inoculated with the ordinary strain of TMV (a strain stocked in our laboratory as an ordinary one), show that the length distribution of particles is generally similar, but there was some indication that the former two preparations contained more short particles than the last one.