Abstract
1. Three strains of cucumber mosaic virus (CMV), ordinary strain (CMV-O), yellow strain (CMV-Y) and C strain (CMV-C) were each inoculated to the tobacco plants, from which the concentrated and partially purified virus suspension was obtained by the differential centrifugation. Among them the CMV-O suspension showed activity almost twice as much as that of the original sap.
2. These purified virus suspensions mixed with the equal amount of Freund's adjuvant were injected into the rabbit muscles and CMV antisera were obtained, their maximum precipitin titre being 128 fold.
3. The antisera are considered to possess a specific antibody against CMV through the experiments of absorption and cross precipitin test with tobacco mosaic virus, potato virus X, potato virus Y and healthy sap.
4. It was impossible to identify these three strains, CMV-O, CMV-Y or CMV-C by the precipitin test of the antisera.
5. The purified preparation from tomato and petunia infected by CMV showed the precipitin reaction with CMV antisera prepared from the infected tobacco.
6. When the CMV was heated no effect was observed on the antigenicity at 45°C. However, the antigenicity gradually weakened in parallel with the pathogenicity by the rise of the temperature and it entirely disappeared at 75°C when the infectivity disappeared.
