Studies on vaccinia hemagglutinin. IV. On the effect of nitrogen mustard on vaccinia hemagglutinin.

Many works were made on the biological application of mustard gas and nitrogen mustard. The mechanism of the biological action of mustards , however, remains largely unknown, and many experimental results have been accumulated to, suggest its mode of actions(1) , among which much attention has been called to the analogy of its action to those of X-ray irradiation or of hydrogen peroxide(2). Herriot(3) reported that mustard gas of nitrogen mustard inactivated plant, animal and bacterial viruses, bacteria , viruses, yeast, and pneumococcus type II transforming substance, and that those which contained more DNA were more readily inactivated . TenBroeck et al(4-6) pointed out that the antigenicity of mustard inactivated viruses was well preserved . Rose et al(7) and Fong et al(8-11) studied on the effect of mustards on influenza virus, and reported that the infectivity and toxicity were readily inactivated by mustards, whereas hemagglutiniating activity was most resistant . The fact reported by Burnet(12) that vaccinia hemagglutinin is a soluble substance which is distinct from the elementary body has been confirmed by many authors (13-16) , and the difference on hemagglutinin of MNI group virus from that of variolavaccinia-ectromelia group virus have been established . Tagaya(17) reported that a nitrogen mustard (methyl-bis-(beta-chroloethyl)amine hydrochloride) inactivated vaccinia hemagglutinin (to be referred subsequently as VH) at a concentration of 2.5 •~10-3M at 37•Ž for 2 hours , whereas its N-oxide synthesized by Ishidate et al(18) was inefective under the same conditions. Detailed works along the line have been carried out and the following