Molecular basis of bluetongue virus neutralization

Molecular and serological analyses of bluetongue virus serotypes 10 and 11 and their intertype reassortants indicate that the viral RNA segment L2 codes for the serotype-specific antigen. Individual RNA segments of parental and reassortant viruses were characterized by oligonucleotide fingerprint analyses. Analyses of their virion polypeptides by Cleveland peptide mapping (Cleveland et al., J. Biol. Chem. 252:1102-1106, 1977) demonstrated that the L2 gene segregated colinearly with the viral P2 protein, implicating it as the antigen that is responsible for the viral serotype specificity.